On Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:53:54 +0700, Bruce In Bangkok
wrote:

Just received the following from my mate in the Philippines:

Just finished a 4 day trip across the Sulu Sea to Puerto Princessa. A
fairly decent trip. Now on a mooring and will stay here for a week or
three. Lot's of rain these days.

I have a Motorola 9505A hand phone with a prepaid sim card (at about
USD$600+ for 500 minutes that will expire after one year) and a small
modem with a 9 pin RS232 connection. I bought all that from SingTel in
Singapore but one can buy the same setup from a host of outfits on the
net. There is a newer replacement phone for the 9505A but they never
changed the modem to USB. I use a simple USB/Serial cross-over. You
can use the accompanying software that Iridium gives out with the
phone but I prefer using SailMail (at USD$250 per year) because it is
so reliable and cuts down on failed connections, etc. that make cost
add up. That probably pays for itself. I once tried out MailaSail but
found it really user-unfriendly. By the way, if you don't plan to use
an HF radio with SailMail and tell them that you will be using a
satellite phone, then they don't require you to have a legal call
sign. This piece of equipment is good for email communication and one
can then set up a 3rd party email weather forecast or just get weather
forecasts from SailMail.

Good information, thanks again.