Sailmail Equipment
Sailmail is a system for sending and receiving email via SSB (Single Sideband)
radio communications with particular shore radio stations connected to the Internet.
We connect wires between our laptop computer and the SCS Pactor 3 modem, and between it and our Icom SSB radio.
Software provided by the Sailmail company does the work of sending and receiving email.
Sailmail costs a fixed amount per year which is less than Iridium airtime charges were for us.
Pactor3 is technology which enables data to be sent and received even with weak signals and static.
This system is slow, only useful for email, and will not accept any attachments to emails but works reasonably well wherever we are.
When near cellphone towers we often do email and surf the Internet via faster mobile telephone modems.