Hi Folks,
In order to file the Waiver for Blackrock, we need to be able to
contact the FAA with 100% certainty at all times. The problem is that
cell service still is not 100% guaranteed on the playa (yes, there are
lingering base-stations and service on the playa for Burning man but
that is not guaranteed).
I'm looking for nine (9) volunteers who will donate $120 to the club
with me so that we may invest in proper satellite gear so and we may
do our own Blackrock launches.
The plan is to get an Iridium Extreme 9575 Satellite phone and
AxcessPoint Wi-Fi Accessory so that we can conduct operations with the
FAA (and have email/Internet access) on the playa (independent of any
basestations that may be in a transient operational state as leftovers
from Burning man).
I've researched this heavily on price/performance and talked to some
experts (including one of the original Motorola comms guys who did
Iridium early architecture and deployment). This is probably a good
post you may want to share with friends, but here's the current state
of the art for consumers under $2K (not geek gear).
Satphone - two competing real services for consumers
- Inmarsat
- Iridium
Inmarsat - Current issue is the high satellite orbit and only 3 active
satellites. plus side is that they are low cost, minus side is that
you need to be stationary to use it. Good service if you're not moving
- but what if you are in a car? Or an Airplane? what's the point of
having a sat-phone if you can't use it as intended? If you're sitting
and not at the nnorth/south poles - it will work and entry cost ~ $700
for the phone.
Iridium - their service and history has been rocky, but from a
technical perspective, their solutions are the best and will scale for
the long run. 11 satellites are in geosynchonous (and lower) orbit.
Will work at any location and any time and service will even work at
the poles (truly global coverage). Guaranteed (by design) to work
almost anytime. Entry cost higher - $1000 for the basic phone.
Wi-Fi and Internet
The other aspect is Internet usage, we would like to have a system
that supports reasonable (e.g. circa 90's 56k dial-up) so we can surf
and/or read email or send important updates out to the chat as the
launch progresses.
Pricing
All of the units use SIM cards (like an existing smartphone). The SIM
card comes with a number, and you can keep that number and recharge as
you go (or change the plan to be a fixed price servcie contract). For
example, and this is what TCC would do - you can buy 100 minutes for
$100 so it's about $1/minute. For a big event like our own Blackrock
event, we could load it up with $200 and have a solid 3+hrs of usage.
The Plan
The plan is simple - we get 10 people - well make that nine (i'm in of
course) who can donate $120 to the club for the Satphone gear - this
would be the high end extreme edition with the Wi-Fi accespoint - it's
a special pricing and deal so we have to act fast (within 1 month).
Notes
- If you're worried about the cost - look at it this way - you're
not going to fly a motor for one launch :-)
- Club will own the phone
- added benefit for the first lucky 9 - off-season we'll let you use
the phone for some number of minutes that you can re-imburse :-)
- We can add minutes as we go
- No charge for inbound calls first minute
- GUARANTEED ACCESS
Actions
Anyhow, who's in with me? This is everyone's chance to step up on the club
in a big way - we can run our own serious EX launches at Blackrock and
have
a really great and fun time. Most importantly (and this is the real goal),
we can have a dedicated 100% guaranteed way to contact the FAA and conduct
flight operations.
Send email and ACK this message, more importantly send check to
Richard or bring $120 to the next launch.
Based on the response, we'll plan for the Blackrock launches.
Thank you
-James
