Magellan GSC 100 Global sat comm, with GPS

[s/v Faith]

I just got my Southwinds in and noticed an add for something I thought may be of interest to some here.

The add in Southwinds was offering it for $395 ^{plus S&H}  Their web site in case anyone was interested is; www.flbarcollc.com

• Communicate via E-mail Worldwide
• Handheld Independent System – Computer not required
• Low Cost. Limited Supply of New Units
• Hardware and Connection Support Available

  I have no info on this other then the adds... just thought I would pass it along in case someone was interested.

little more info....

  The Magellan GSC 100 Global sat comm, with GPS

  It is not cheap, but if someone were thinking about a sat phone, this might be a viable option.

To register a GSC 100 unit in the United States, users pay a one-time activation fee of $49.95. There is a monthly access charge of $29.95, which includes 10 messages and 30 message checks. After the first ten messages, there is a $.01 charge for each character (alpha or numeric) included in outgoing messages.

 

[s/v Faith]

Does anyone have one? Use one? I understand they now charge a flat $30 a month for unlimited satellite text messages.

Any one have experience with one?

Magellan GSC 100 GPS Communicator



Data sheet; http://www.devill.net/Documentation/Magellan/GSC100/gsc100datasheet.pdf

Owners Manual: http://l-36.com/manuals4/Documentation/Magellan/GSC100/gsc100refguide.pdf

[jpfx]

from browsing I understand this tech to be at least 10 years old and $1100.
I'd classify this as being a forerunner to SPOT and delorme inreach.
the link says 10 messages for the $30 monthly charge, if you can get unlimited and buy a unit for a reasonable cost then it seems like a sound investment for global comms if you're off the grid long enough to cover the minimum subscription length (don't know what that would be).
Otherwise I'm more inclined towards inreach with a suitable subscription or failing that, SPOT. Both are certainly much more portable and probably with much lower power requirements.

SAT phones seem to be getting within financial reach of the average joe. I can't remember which one I was looking at (they had reasonable coverage around the americas and only a small dead spot in the North Atlantic, but their rates seemed not so high that I rejected the idea immediately.

I'm inclined towards hf ssb radio though that's got to be the most difficult to install and although the initial investment is high, I would expect to recoup a fair bit if selling.

[s/v Faith]

The price dropped pretty quickly to around $400... the units are available for about 1/2 that now.

The advantage over SPOT is that it allows 2 way comms.  You can send email (as you can on a sat phone) but the equipment is both cheap and self contained.

Would like to hear from someone who has used one, I suspect it is less likely used as many folks do the same thing with a SSB and a Pactor modem... and others would not be willing to be limited by the 'text only' emails....

... may well be the perfect solution for a small boat Sailor to be able to keep in touch while at sea though...

Will post more later as I figure it out.

[marujo_sortudo]

Interesting read on the company at Wikipedia, if you haven't seen it yet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbcomm

Another more recent iteration of this type of solution seems to be the SkyMate:

http://www.marinecomputer.com/info.php?info_id=95
http://www.skymate.com/

[s/v Faith]

Update;

 I went ahead and picked up one of these off of ebay.  It was pretty cheap, and boots up and finds the satellites (both orbacomm and GPS) ok.

 I found a service provider, Summit Communication Services.  They have been very helpful, and have very cheap plans available.  I will update once I get this going, have service scheduled to start on 1 May.

[s/v Faith]

I have now sent several messages with the unit and it works pretty well.  The keyboard is somewhat difficult to write long texts on, but functional.

I am looking at the Delorme unit for my upcoming trip, but have this one i can use.  The service plan I have is $8.95 a month.  They had cheaper plans with less data, but this was pretty reasonable so I went for it.