With a SSB radio and a Pactor III you can get weatherfax, text weather
reports, and satellite images from NMG, New Orleans. Sailmail provides
email ($250/yr fee) or Airmail (free)for hams with a general or better
ticket. With Airmail, you can also send position reports so people can
see where your boat is located ( http//:winlink.org ). Both are limited
to an average of 10 min/day. Pactor III is about 3kb. A one page email
is about 10k characters. Netnews forums have far to much garbage to
download by SSB. Us it to communicate with only those you share your
email address with. Use internet cafes for netnews when in port.
krj
s/v Isle Escape


FamilySailor wrote:

If you're talking about posting underway, there are several
programs that would probably let you do it via SSB.


I have investigated several SSB options, but they seem slow and based on
such old technology. I know they have email, but was not sure if they would
work for News group posting like here. I was hoping there was some new
technology available that would allow me to download all the new messages in
this group, say...... while the 1st mate is on her wheel watch while we are
in the middle Of the Gulf of Mexico heading to Cancun for the winter. And
keep family and friends posted and maybe even see satellite images and
forecasts. Maybe by the time we are ready and able to cruise they will have
the technology ready for me.

I guess the technology is not there or too expansive if it is. I know they
have palm pilots that surf the net, but off shore they are probabily out of
the cell network or what ever they use.