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Comment by sakopov | Hacker News Reader

Absolutely agree. You want a satellite phone for true emergency situations in the wilderness. A good one will cost you around $500 and you just have to buy a temporary plan before your excursion. The sad thing is that this phone appears to be marketed as wilderness survival device but in all likelihood will do very little to get you out of backcountry without cell towers in the area.

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For most emergency situations in the wilderness, you only really need something that can generate a SOS signal with your location. COSPAS-SARSAT personal location beacons do just that, and the basic ones can be had for just over $200. And since the satellite network they use is government (well, governments, since it's multinational) owned, and reserved for such emergency use, you don't need any subscription.

Plenty of Iridium VARs will rent you equipment; phones, SBD beacons, etc. for less.

If you're truely going off the grid and want realtime coms available there is no alternative to Iridium.

An EPIRB is great if you just want to be found.

I own a DeLorme inReach - ~$300 device with a ~$15/month plan. Runs on the Iridium network, unlike Spot's proprietary network. Also, inReach devices are duplex, and can send text messages to friends, family, and SAR teams.

What makes Iridium's network less proprietary than Spot's network?

SPOT uses Globalstar.

Argument against Globalstar is that it is not a true polar to polar real-time solution like Iridium.

Iridium is the only constellation where you will always find a bird overhead anywhere on the globe (with a ground station relay)

Realistically, Iridium has occasional (~5min) signal gaps likely due to the aging constellation (based on my own use cases developing with a roof mounted antenna)

While probably better than relying on mobile towers, aren't satellite communications difficult with a dense forest canopy? Probably best that people be aware of the limits of their devices before heading out.

You do need some level of line of sight to the sky for Iridium voice, less so for sending SBD (similar to a text message).

If your GPS can get a fix, you can probably find enough signal to send a SBD.

Iridium carrier signal is stronger than GPS.

Easier to climb a tree or find a clearing than hike 600 miles to the nearest cell tower, right?

Climbing a 100+ foot tree would probably not be advisable or possible in an emergency situation. There may not be a nearby clearing or you could be disoriented.

Likely the satphone is better, but there are still limits.

> Climbing a 100+ foot tree would probably not be advisable or possible in an emergency situation.

Why not? There are all kinds of Emergencies. Some trees are fairly easy to climb.

> You want a satellite phone for true emergency

Another problem with that is the current public perception often is that their phones contact space. I hear this over and over again. It is interesting. Drive by cell phone towers all day and still think your iPhone is "going to space" when it is loading slow. There is a Louis CK bit about this on Conan's show. I wonder if that kickstarted part of the misconception

Surely nobody mistakenly thinks they have a satellite phone, and I've never heard the phrase 'going to space.' Do you really know people who believe that? Are you sure they aren't joking?

Nobody thinks they have a "satellite phone", they just don't know much about communications technology, and so going via space seems as sensible as anything else.

Have you seen the Louis C.K. bit the parent is referring to? It's a joke, but the joke is that people are annoyed with their phone being slow despite it "going to space".

I suspect GPS may be responsible for this misconception. It uses satellites, so obviously my phone must have some way to communicate with space right?

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