7/18/04

OK, well the picture went through.  But . . . it took about 20 minutes and the satellite phone (Iridium) connection dropped and re-dialed about 8 times.  They advertise 19 kilobits but that is BS.  You get 19 kilobits for the 2 seconds that a satellite is overhead and has available bandwidth.  And you get zero kilobits when the satellite is saturated or has moved off and you are waiting for the next one.  (The downlink is significantly better than the uplink -- it must be easier for the phone to receive from the satellite than for the satellite to pick up the tiny little signal from the phone.) 

Anyway, text only from now on.  And if you are replying, you should reply to "Boat@Taft.com", not include pictures, and please try to delete the original quoted message from your message -- helps with the bandwidth issue.