HOW well do they work?
how expensive?
any recommendations either as to type or companies? (web site or contact info please)
Thanks

We bring a Sat. phone on every major hunt.
They work better than most conventional cel. phones.
I think we use Globalstar.
It costs us about $150.00 Canadian per week (I use it quite a bit).

It allows me to go on hunts that I would never otherwise be able to take in. For a businessman or for safety I think they are invaluable.

Jamie

Satellite phones are unbelievable handy. If you rent one, you will decide to buy one. Thoroughly research any brand before you buy. Don't believe everything salesmen tell you. Some of these phones will not work in different regions of the world, or are very expense when used in the wrong region. Talk to people that have actually bought & used the brand of phone you are thinking of buying. There several adds in the SCI magazine for satellite phones.

One of are party lease one for two weekson are recent AK. trip he said the rent was 120 us plus 1.80 dollars a min. We used it several times worked well where we were at.

This link will give you the info you are looking for. I recommend that you rent a Iridium phone. I have a Iridium phone and was able to try a Globalstar phone last Fall in Alaska. The Iridium phone worked all of the time while the globalstar worked about 30% of the time. One thing to think about is that most services have a surcharge of $10.00 per minute if you use one type of sat phone and call another type.
http://www.wcclp.com/?page=2

[ 10-24-2003, 16:49: Message edited by: DaveC ]

Lawcop,

Based on experiences this past September I can vouch that the Globalstar Sattelite phones are not of the quality they are advertised to be.

My son rented one for a two week moose hunting trip in NE Alberta. According to the pamphlet this area in Alberta lied within the category of primary globalstar service.

When he tried to use it to call me, we would be cut off in mid conversation more often than not. At times the voices on the sat phone would be interrupted and then simply the sat phone would say " leaving globalstar service" ( ie lost signal with sattelite).

He was told that you may experience reduced service area depending on the weather conditions. He called on clear days with no cloud cover from an open area and the service was again not very clear.

The phone was rented for $104CDN/wk and the airtime rate was $4.00/min.

If I were to go out into that area again would I rent another? Yes I would, even though the service was not as good as I had hoped it still got the job done. If you ever got in trouble this could be your only lifeline.

I've been using Globalstar the past 4 years here in the Arctic,plus during travels elsewhere, often over a thousand minutes per month. On occasion, clear or cloudy, you do lose the satellite, but nothing is infallible. Compared to others brought and used by clients, I feel it's still the best and highly recommend it, and often comment that the sat-phone is the greatest item to hit the wilderness in the 20th century. ~Arctic~

I rented a satellite phone for my safari to Zimbabwe in September and October of this year. It was something that worked great for me and was very comforting, considering I was on one side of the world and my family was on the other.
Besides being able to call home and hear about what all my kids were doing, I could get e-mails of up to 120 characters from friends, family, and my business. It was great to hear from home and learn about who won certain football games, how my daughter's date for homecoming turned out, and that I did not need to rush home and kill the young man that had taken her out.
The phone cost $75/week and $1.50/minute. I did lose conctact with the satellites whenever my calls lasted more than 10-15 minutes. After this happened routinely, I began suspecting that as the satellites were moving across the sky, it ultimately caused me to lose contact with the system. That said, because my calls were always casual and personal, as compared to something urgent and business related, the dropped calls were only a modest inconvenience. I could have used another satellite phone company that prided itself on clearer calls with none dropped, but the cost of the one I selected was about 1/3 of the "better one" and not worth the difference to me.

By the way, here's the company that I rented my phone from: SatPhone-sales