Sat Phone Rental

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sdjeep

Adventurer
The wife and i will be doing about a week of exploring the Mojave in October. I would feel a bit better if i had a good way to call for assistance if needed since it will just be the two of us. Can anyone recommend a good place to rent a satallite phone is the so cal (San Diego) area? I have never rented or used one before, but i would like the peace of mind having one out there. What should i look for in a rental? It would be an emergency only phone, so i really don't care what minutes would cost because if were using it, something bad has happened. Thanks for any input.
 
S

Strizzo

Explorer
the company i work for rents sat phones from www.globalcomsatphone.com never had to use it, but they're supposed to be good for anywhere. one thing though, you'll only have a few minutes of talk time, like 15 minutes on a charge (this is what i've been told, so it may not still be the case though), so you'll need to have someone you can call that knows who to call in order to effect rescue for you. this means you'll also need (probably already have) gps in order to give your location to rescuers.

this is one of those things where a little bit of thought a few weeks prior to your trip can save a bunch of panic and running around in the event of an emergency.
 
Herbie

Herbie

Rendezvous Conspirator
If you're only looking to use it for an emergency, (not daily contact) you might look into renting a 406MHz PLB instead.

http://www.equipped.org/cospas-sarsat_overview.htm

I own and carry an ACR MicrOfix because I do a lot of solo hiking, but for the occasional user, renting is probably a decent option.
http://www.acrelectronics.com/microfix/microfix.htm

As Strizzo pointed out, battery life on a Satphone is short. A PLB will give you somewhere between 20 and 40 hours of emergency beacon time (depending on temperature) and the alert will go straight from the satellite to rescue authorities. I'm a hardcore PLB advocate (see my blog: http://herbiesworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/four-more-lives-that-could-have-been.html), and I'm in San Diego, so if you don't find any other option for Satphone or PLB rental, drop me a note and maybe we can work something out...
 
cruisertoy

cruisertoy

Explorer
I rent a Sat phone every year for two weeks for my float trips in Alaska. Some place out of florida. They are nice to have to talk a few times with the wife and kids. This year we had a diabetic on the trip who started to have issues so we called his doctor and adjusted his meds over the phone. Worked out nice. We carry an ACR as well, but would only use that is Life or death type emergencies. This year we also carried a SPOT. The problem that far North is that any medium to good sized hill will block your signal to the Satalites/land based systems they use. We lost tracking mode for three days as we went around a hill. Other than those three days it worked just fine.
 
mhiscox

mhiscox

Expedition Leader
When we go on mulitday trips to areas with no one else around, we rent a satellite phone from a communications company here in Portland. It costs $10 a day and $1 a minute to talk on it. I've never really needed it, but I felt much more secure having it.

The problem with an emergency beacon is that you need to have an emergency. Just needing help doesn't work. The SPOT is considerably better because of the alternative to send either an emergency signal (911 equivalent) or to tell your contact person that you need "help." However, it was having once used a SPOT to try to coordinate a rescue of my truck that got me sold on a satellite phone. Just being able to tell someone you need help at a certain location doesn't give the "rescuers" any clue what the problem is, and the worst part was not having a way to call people off once the problem was solved.

So the SPOT always goes with me, and the sat phone gets rented once or twice a year when we go somewhere solo where were not likely to quickly come across some assistance.
 
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