On Jul 19, 2:25 pm, wrote:
... you know, we hams regularly read the NWS forecasts ...

Yes, the ham nets are wonderful. Also there is lots of info available
on winlink for hams with pactor and saildocs for everyone with some
form of email. I use saildocs as a chopper for the gribs (you can get
both the GFS and NGP from saildocs now). The only complaint I have
with it is that you can't get the previous 6hr precipitation which
provides very useful clues to the placement and strength of fronts,
convergence zones, tropical waves, etc. I can't imagine why any
boater bothers with 500mb charts anymore.

But, I digress. More on topic, I too am thinking about getting a
digital connection to my iridium 9500 because I've got lots of unused
air time. Does anyone here have any recent experience with setting
this up? I am curious about the hardware set-up, the software and the
servers available and the quality of service.

Cheers,

-- T.