Who knew your VHF was so powerful?

Papillon

Sea-Tow has a new service for both it's members and non-members. It is a ship-to-shore telephone service. You can read more about it here http://www.seasmartvhf.com/ .

It is available in a limited area at the moment...but coming to your shores soon.

Mike

thataway · Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 10:29 pm Post subject:

Sounds like the old VHF marine operator, which went out of business a few years ago. Add in polling your DSC enabled set. What is interesting is that the charge is about $12 a month for Sea Tow members for "unlimited calls"--sort of wonder who you can call for that....sounds like a bargin.

davehogue555 · Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 12:32 pm Post subject:

Any opinions of the towing services offered by Sea Tow verses TowBoatU.S.? Response times? Attitudes? Willingness to help?
Thanks,
Dave

Papillon · Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 1:58 pm Post subject:

Both these outfits operate on a franchise system so the level of service and the willingness to help all depends on the guy and what kind of day he is having. Service areas differ and in some cases there is overlap. I would check your area and ask the other boaters in your area of boating what they have found from the years of service they may have had with the two companys.

rogerbum

Papillon · Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 8:26 am Post subject:

Roger ,
I have one of those POS cell phones too. The only problem is if you boat on a coastal plane, you don't have the luxury of having land circle you three quarters of the way...land provides a base for cell phone towers as you are never over 10 miles away from a cell tower a anytime.

However after 10 miles off the coast here and many other places, the VHF is our only means of communication with shore, it is this setup that makes this a very nice service.

rogerbum · Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 1:35 pm Post subject:

I'm just tweakin' ya a bit. However, I have found that with Verizon out here (where the towers are generally on hills, cliffs or small mountains), I get service 20 to even 25 miles off shore at Neah Bay (I didn't get service even in Neah Bay with other carriers). However
1) I'm rarely more than 8-10 miles off shore
2) When I am, I'm almost always fishing
3) I don't really want to talk to those land lubbers at the time
4) I still have my VHF for what it's really good for - talking to other boats and land based stations (such as the coast guard).

I guess (4) is the real point. The VHF is great for certain kinds of ship to shore communication but if ya really want to have a phone conversation with someone, it's hard to beat a phone for that.

Papillon · Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 3:52 pm Post subject:

That's "OK"...Roger, I need tweaking every now and then.

I forget about you folks that live where you have a mountain or two to put a cell tower. Down here it is so flat and the mangrove's (trees with exposed roots) are so dense that any line of sight signal will not penetrate them, so we don't get very far off shore without the loss of cell service.

Send us one of your mountains....and we will pay you in Sand Dollars...they are worth almost as much as the US Dollar.

Mike

thataway · Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 9:00 pm Post subject:

To reinforce what Papillon says, often cell tower antennas are focused inland rather over the water. It varies with the cellular service and the coverage. Our home is only 0.7 miles seaward from our nearest cell tower, but we don't get a good signal. If we are 5 miles inland, we get a very good signal from the same tower.