Sat sleeve for iphone

[Supertramp]

And just to chime in on the question of pre paid Thuraya SIMs not being legal in Australia...

A pre paid airtime seller based in Victoria has advised me that whilst you can indeed no longer enter into a pre paid contract with a reseller/telco operating in Australia because it doesn’t conform to the local phone bugging regulations, you can still use a prepaid Thuraya SIM you bought internationally to access Thuraya services in Australia.

So if you’re interested in a sat phone (particularly for emergency or occasion use) but are put off by the prohibitive costs of the monthly plans offered by Aussie telcos/resellers (who would just love you to believe you don’t have any other choices), simply buy a Thuraya SIM overseas on Ebay or Amazon for next to nothing and top it up on line.

Also, looking at that link again at http://www.epirbhire.com.au/Thuraya%20SatSleeve.htm these guys seem to not understand how Thuraya phones work. They say about the look angle “For NSW and southern QLD coastal users it will be 20 to 22 degrees” and this is all fine but “For the Victorians and Tasmanians, forget it - won't work for you” even though the look angle is 25 degrees in Melbourne, 29 in Mildura and between around 20 to nearly 24 in Tassie, so on average better than in the places they say work ok. It’s not the only thing that’s wrong on their site so I guess they are EPIRB and PLB specialists...

Did you really just jump on here to belittle epirbhire.com.au?
"The Thuraya satellite is positioned 35,000km above Sumatra. Provided that one is aware of the low satellite angle it is not really an issue. For NSW and southern QLD coastal users it will be 20 to 22 degrees above the horizon. The low height is not too much of a problem with regards to hills but tall trees will be an issue and wet tall trees will stop the signal. For the Victorians and Tasmanians, forget it - won't work for you. If you are heading for Alice Springs it is 48 degrees up - perfect!"

[Squilookal]

Did you really just jump on here to belittle epirbhire.com.au?

18 months on I just saw this...no I didn't. As they had been mentioned on the thread as a point of reference in this topic, I thought it might be worth pointing out that what they stated on their website was not only an indication that they don’t understand how sat phones work, it was internally inconsistent with the other information they provided. My apologies if you think that was inappropriate.

[Giddy_up]

Squilookal when I posted that information and link (three years ago) there was no information about the performance of Satsleeve!!!The retailer in question was then the only retailer who had provided anecdotal evidence of Satsleeves performance here in Australia and so I thought it was worth linking. I think it's also fair to say that electronic appraisal really isn't worth the paper it's printed on so to speak, what is absolute today is old hat tomorrow because of the massive technological advancements made every day.

Given your claims of wonderful success can I ask you a few questions.

How long have you owned your Satsleeve?

What made you purchase it for use in Tasmania? Or was it purchased for use elsewhere domestically or abroad?

Where have you used it in Tasmania?

Thanks in advance
G_U



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Squilookal]

Hi Giddy-up,

I appreciate this thread is about the iPhone sat sleeve, I have never used one of these so I don’t have anything to contribute about the value or otherwise of that specific piece of equipment. If you feel this fact means I shouldn’t have posted, I apologise. The reason I did post was just that the referenced link made a comment that potential users in TAS or VIC should forget the Thuraya network in general (which I felt was unfair) and this seemed to be influencing people viewing the thread not to buy the sat sleeve.

I don’t think I claimed wonderful success but I use a couple of Thuraya SO-2510’s and have found them to perform absolutely fine in Tasmania. I don’t know if dedicated phones would perform better than the sat sleeve but as far as using the Thuraya network itself, I’ve used the SO-2510’s with no difficulty at all at various mountain and costal locations in central and southern Tassie (where the low look angle should make connections more difficult than in the north of the state).

I’m not sure if continuing is helpful as you’re interested in the sleeve but as the decision making process probably needs to consider both handset and network, in partial answer your questions; the Thuraya network is best for me personally because (at the time or writing), it had the lowest on going costs for very low use users, this may have changed, I haven’t kept up with newer plans/products on other networks. I originally purchased the phones for international use in the northern hemisphere and chose them because the coverage was everything I needed plus the negligible on going network costs.

Purely on a technical level, I would absolutely agree with the EPIRBhire piece that Thuraya is not the best for Tassie but this is different from it not being usable and if we’re talking about buying equipment to use on an on going basis rather than hiring, there are obviously additional aspects to consider.

[GPSGuided]

Another coverage map from Thuraya's company web site. NZ looked dicey but Tassie looked just in. There was also talk of the high gain antenna used by the user units, therefore the connectivity can be improved by aiming in the direction of their geostationary satellite.