Satellite SOS iPhone 14

[rbp]

"7) Works for scuba divers down to 100+’. And a wide range of temps…"

just to clarify, the Apple Watch Ultra hardware is depth-rated to 100m or 328'. The software hasn't been released yet (from Oceanic), but it is supposedly limited to 130' (recreational diving limit).

Which raises another question: why did Foreflight drop support for the apple watch???

 

[WAFI]

I'm just trying to figure out how to mount my Starlink on my Mooney.

 

Starlink is a game changer!!!

[201Steve]

6 hours ago, WAFI said:

Starlink is a game changer!!!

I’m going to be telling my kids one day, “Back in my day, all we had up here was ADSB weather updates, that old ground based stuff!” 

[Pinecone]

19 hours ago, WAFI said:

I'm just trying to figure out how to mount my Starlink on my Mooney.

 

Starlink is a game changer!!!

Elon should consider a aviation side.  

Both for GA and commercial.  It would be nice to have internet on board.

LOTS of possibilities.  Like real time download of black box info, so no searching for them after a crash.

 

[WAFI]

3 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

Elon should consider a aviation side.  

Both for GA and commercial.  It would be nice to have internet on board.

LOTS of possibilities.  Like real time download of black box info, so no searching for them after a crash.

 

Its coming in time, the tech is already in production. What cool about it, is that it will most likely be skin paneling like a flexible solar panel.

[EricJ]

Starlink is already oversubscribed, you can't squeeze water from a rock.    It's a great PR tool, though.

 

[Hank]

2 hours ago, WAFI said:

Its coming in time, the tech is already in production. What cool about it, is that it will most likely be skin paneling like a flexible solar panel.

System designed? check!

In production? check!

System operational? I dunno.

Tested for aviation? Please allow ten years after significant operation begins.

Approved by FAA for certified aircraft? Please allow additional 3 years to infinity . . . . .

[Pinecone]

2 hours ago, EricJ said:

Starlink is already oversubscribed, you can't squeeze water from a rock.    It's a great PR tool, though.

People I know that have it have good speeds.

And the system is not static, they keep launching satellites by the several dozen.  

[EricJ]

7 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

People I know that have it have good speeds.

And the system is not static, they keep launching satellites by the several dozen.  

Yes, the system is not anywhere close to the planned build-out, which may or may not turn out to be practical.    There are several competing systems as well.    All are capacity limited, and people seem to have expectations for them that just aren't going to be met.

 

[WAFI]

7 hours ago, Pinecone said:

People I know that have it have good speeds.

And the system is not static, they keep launching satellites by the several dozen.  

Definitely not static, I'm a yacht captain that just recently  cruised the Med, crossed the Atlantic and now sitting in South Florida all while running Starlink. I bought two one for the med and one for the US. Both look identical but the US version has a FCC license to operate. It has been a absolute game charger. VSAT companies will fail if the performance continues. 

[Pinecone]

18 hours ago, EricJ said:

Yes, the system is not anywhere close to the planned build-out, which may or may not turn out to be practical.    There are several competing systems as well.    All are capacity limited, and people seem to have expectations for them that just aren't going to be met.

ALL data systems are capacity limited.

Fiber, cable, RF based.  Even the major internet backbones have a limit.

The question is, is that limit causing issues.

For aviation use, the data rate would not have to be that high, per aircraft.

[EricJ]

13 hours ago, WAFI said:

Definitely not static, I'm a yacht captain that just recently  cruised the Med, crossed the Atlantic and now sitting in South Florida all while running Starlink. I bought two one for the med and one for the US. Both look identical but the US version has a FCC license to operate. It has been a absolute game charger. VSAT companies will fail if the performance continues. 

Did you ever try Iridium?

VSAT companies, et al, have been failing for some time.   Intelsat went bankrupt.

[WAFI]

1 hour ago, EricJ said:

Did you ever try Iridium?

VSAT companies, et al, have been failing for some time.   Intelsat went bankrupt.

Iridium yes, but only for sat phone purposes. 

Don't quote me on this but 100% of all VSAT service companies are owned and operated out of Palma in the Med. There are all shi* and have been gouging the marine industry for decades now. 6mbs down for $3800 -$4500 a month is ridiculous. Starlink i get 150mbs down for $125 a month.

Just a little FYI, have been using the RV model not the marine model. $500 for equipment $125 a month vs. $10000 for equipment $5000 a month. 

 

[WAFI]

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, WAFI said:

Iridium yes, but only for sat phone purposes. 

They do data as well now but it is probably not cost competitive with what you're using.   

The VSAT business has always been in constant evolution.   Most of the people/companies I used to work with in that area have moved on or morphed into something else.   Some are working on the LEO-to-LTE approach now, which is interesting.   I'm not surprised that the options that are left aren't great.

[Pinecone]

I looked at the Iridium product for aviation, but the data rate was slower than dial up modems.

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, Pinecone said:

I looked at the Iridium product for aviation, but the data rate was slower than dial up modems.

The current generation is quite a bit better than that.   There is also channel aggregation to increase data rate, it just costs more.

The competitive landscape and available tech are a moving target.  It'll be interesting to see where it all goes.

[Pinecone]

Do you have a link to numbers?   I was looking just a couple of months ago

 

[EricJ]

7 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

Do you have a link to numbers?   I was looking just a couple of months ago

 

These guys are showing up to 1.4Mbps, but I don't know if it's suitable for air with the platforms shown.    There's all kinds of different equipment available, and I don't know where to go to get it.   Some of it is spook/military stuff.

https://satellitephonestore.com/iridium-certus

These guys specifically do aviation, but aimed at business. It is not solely satellite based:

https://business.gogoair.com/how-to-buy/data-voice-plans 

The technology evolution suggests that more portable stuff will be available with time, but I don't know how accessible they'll be to the public.

[carusoam]

Incredible info being shared!

Thank you gents!

reminds me of my dial up days… 300baud.

I can read and write faster than that…  

Go MS!

Best regards,

-a-

[Pinecone]

12 hours ago, EricJ said:

These guys are showing up to 1.4Mbps, but I don't know if it's suitable for air with the platforms shown.    There's all kinds of different equipment available, and I don't know where to go to get it.   Some of it is spook/military stuff.

https://satellitephonestore.com/iridium-certus

These guys specifically do aviation, but aimed at business. It is not solely satellite based:

https://business.gogoair.com/how-to-buy/data-voice-plans 

The technology evolution suggests that more portable stuff will be available with time, but I don't know how accessible they'll be to the public.

The problem is, look at the antennas they show for that level of service.

The small units for aircraft use are VERY low data rates.   Not sufficient to do most any internet based access.  More like texting only.

[EricJ]

2 hours ago, Pinecone said:

The problem is, look at the antennas they show for that level of service.

The small units for aircraft use are VERY low data rates.   Not sufficient to do most any internet based access.  More like texting only.

That's what I meant when I said those platforms may not be suitable for air.    There is other equipment that would be more suitable, but I don't know whether it's available to the public.   Probably not cost effective for the typical GA driver in any case.

These are the general tradeoffs, though.   If you want a stable enough system to get higher throughput from a satellite system, it's not gonna be a handheld.   Multi-antenna or beam-steered antennas are getting there, but are still expensive and larger than some want.  Physics can be a bitch. 

[Pinecone]

The problem with some of the marine systems are they use geosync sats.  Which means more precise aiming and more power.

That is why something StarLink based might work better.  LEO sats mean they are closer.  Lots of them mean less critical aiming.

 

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, Pinecone said:

The problem with some of the marine systems are they use geosync sats.  Which means more precise aiming and more power.

That is why something StarLink based might work better.  LEO sats mean they are closer.  Lots of them mean less critical aiming.

It's a tradeoff.   If you really want bandwidth/throughput and reliability, a geosynchronous satellite has been the way to get that.   If you want global network coverage and/or low latency, you need a LEO system, which is why Iridium was born a few decades ago.   For narrow bandwidths (e.g., voice) the aiming issue is really solved by the shorter distance of the LEO link, but if you want more bandwidth for higher throughput for data you need either more power (which can create interference problems across the network) or a higher gain antenna that needs to be pointed.   Whether the higher gain antenna is pointed manually or mechanically steered or electrically beamformed is an implementation/cost issue, but you're not going to get the same performance with a handheld or tiny antenna.   Regardless, there are always limitations.  Starlink has all the same limitations, it's not anything new or particularly innovative, it just takes a different tradeoff that is yet to be seen whether it really lives up to practical expectation (not the marketing hype, just practical expecations).   

[Pinecone]

Agreed.

The question is what data rates do we need.  Or what will be usable.

Personally, I am not looking at streaming movies while flying.