Dry Lakes Racers Australia

Found this news item today and thought there may be a few people interested in it...

SatSleeve turns iPhone into
satellite phone with a click

SYDNEY – Optus is targeting outback and remote area travellers, including fly-in/fly-out mining industry workers, government agents, pastoralists and others with a gadget that turns an iPhone 4 into a satellite phone.

The Thuraya SatSleeve is said to click onto the iPhone, enabling users to make satellite calls and send SMSs from pretty well anywhere without having to carry a second device. The SatSleeve also doubles as a battery backup for the iPhone,

Connecting to Thuraya satellites, customers will be able to get satellite phone coverage right across Australia, Asia, Middle East, Europe and most of Africa, according to Optus.

The SatSleeve costs $690 and currently works with the iPhone 4 and 4S; Optus says an adapter for the 5 and new 5s models will be available "soon".

A monthly plan is also needed. Prices start at $49 access fee, plus $1.30 a minute for calls.


Sounds good to me + it might be a decent way of transmitting blow by blow updates back to the real world during speed week?

Lynchy

Sounds like a good idea.
However, My experience at Lake Gairdner with the Thuraya network, was pretty crappy.
The following visit to Lake Gairdner, I brought a satelite phone on the Iridium (Telstra) network, It worked much better. Many folks don't know this, but if you are a Telstra customer, all you need to do is activate global roaming on your SIM card, then insert your regular Telstra SIM card into an Iridium phone and it will work. You do not need to sign up for monthly accounts etc. You send and receive texts, make and receive calls on your normal mobile phone number.

Telstra, Optus & Voda (in no particular order) all have these things called COWS (cell on wheels), unfortunatley despite threvenue and PR oportunity (1,000 prepaid SIMCARDS) they all want x$10k to deploy. One major benefit for us would be (edit: cost effective?) real time GPS tracking for each vehicle.

A cell on wheels will provide mobile coverage in the area where it is deployed but only between those in the cellular area. In order for calls to be made back into the carrier network, some kind of connection needs to be established with the network you need to connect to. For Lake G this would be either Satellite, copper or microwave. We have Satellite but with the limitations associated with it and we have microwave (but only at the shearers camp and what sort of bandwidth). There is no landline service. I

Lynchy

Portable repeater into the mobile network on top of Mount Ive?

jon

or get a sat phone

yes