Looking at finally getting a sat. phone and wondering which company has the best phone for use in Canada and the U.S. Most of our hunting trips are either up in Canada and the western U.S. or Alaska.

Any specific model that seems to work best in both areas?

Seems like the Iridium has had pretty good reviews, but wondering which model.....9505, 9555, 9575 Extreme?

Best place to buy/plans?


Thanks
Brett

Stay away from Globalstar. I've got a 9555. It's the most basic model but if you just want to call from it, it works great.

Iridium and all ears open as we need a new unit ...

I have 5 iridium older models.. all work great. north of 60
Maybe look at SPOT though.

Watson Lake

We have the old 9505 and it's still ticking.

I have an Iridium 9555. Never any issues. May drop a call once in a while but generally very reliable. I deal with Explorer Satellite in Florida, very easy to deal with. I keep a few Sim cards and when I am going somewhere I activate one.

Thanks for the feedback.

I did look at the Spot Messenger, Delorme In Reach and Iridium Go but after reading all of the info. on these, I decided on the basic phone.

I ordered the Iridium 9555 through Road Post with a pre-paid card (no monthly/annual contract) and it should be here on Aug. 28th. We leave on the 1st and our hunt starts on the 3rd. Will let everyone know how it works when we return............

Well, just got back from the Yukon and here's the report on the new phone (Iridium 9555)

Ordered the phone from Road Post(http://www.roadpost.com/satcom.aspx). Purchased a new phone and pre-paid card for 75 minutes($150.00) to avoid the monthly subscription. Free 2 day shipping is included. ** One thing to be aware of is that the 75 minutes are good for 30 days. And, the days start from the date on which Road Post sends the phone.

I had told them that I would like to have the phone on Friday, Aug. 28th if possible as we were leaving on Monday the 31st. The phone arrived on Thursday afternoon. On Friday morning, I opened the box and read the instructions. I noticed in the instructions that one of the first things you need to do is fully charge the phone (phone showed about 75% charged). I plugged the phone into the charger and nothing!! I read the instructions again thinking i missed something and tried again. Nothing. It came with a car charger so i went out to the car to try it. Nothing. I immediately got on the phone and called Road Post. They took my info. and said someone would call me right back. Within 15 minutes a rep. called me back and walked me through a bunch of steps to try solve the issue. Nothing!! The representative told me that I most likely had a back phone jack. Only way to fix it was to send it back. Like he explained.........the phones are mass produced and things happen. Totally understand. I told him that I was leaving on Monday and wondering what my options were. He said that with the phone at 75% capacity, it should be o.k. for about 3 hrs. of talk time and 30 hrs.(?) standby time. I could keep it, use it and send it back when i returned from our trip or they would rush a phone to me overnight where I was staying in Whitehorse. Only kicker on that option was that the phone wouldn't ship until Monday (from Montreal I believe). Since we were headed out for our hunt on Tuesday morning, this wasn't an option. I told him that I would try the phone with what we had (charge) and see what happens.

While I had him on the phone, I asked for a quick tutorial on using the phone. Turns out that the phone is already set up/pre-programmed to use once you receive it. All you have to do is insert the SIM card, turn on the phone, press 0 until a + sign appears and then dial 1 + area code/phone number you want to dial. Very easy..........

We used the phone every day (10 days) and was very impressed. A couple of time we had dropped calls but we just waited a few minutes and tried again. Worked fine. Honestly, it seemed to work better on cloudy/crappy days. The only time we had an issue was trying to use it downtown Whitehorse. It wouldn't find a strong signal.
My brother did have a couple of dropped calls but he likes to move/walk around while talking! We returned with 10 minutes left on the card and about 1/4 battery life!

On a side note, the guides/outfitter we were with used to use the Iridium but have now switched to the Delorme In Reach. They love them. Cheaper and more reliable in their opinion.

I must say that I was really impressed with the service from Road Post on this. I will be sending the phone back this week for a replacement.