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Blogging on a map from a boat Place: Ko Phiphi Don, Thailand, Thailand |
This entry is part of a map titled: "Seattle to Thailand and Back".
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I'm at a very low bandwidth internet cafe in Ko Phiphi, so I thought I'd write a quick entry about how we're posting from the boat and submit it to digg. What the hell.
We're using a service called Sailmail to send and receive email via HF radio on the boat. Here's an extract from the sailmail website explaining what it is:
*snip*
The SailMail Association is a non-profit association of yacht owners that operates and maintains an email communications system for use by its members. SailMail email can be transferred via SailMail's own world-wide network of SSB-Pactor radio stations, or via satellite (Iridium, Inmarsat, Globalstar) or any other method of internet access. The SailMail system implements an efficient email transfer protocol that is optimized for use over communications systems that have limited bandwidth and high latency. Satellite communications systems and SSB-Pactor terrestrial radio communications systems both have these characteristics. The SailMail email system's custom protocol substantially reduces the number of link-turn-arounds and implements compression, virus filtering, spam filtering, and attachment filtering. The combination of the protocol, compression, and filtering dramatically improves communications efficiency.
The SailMail Association also maintains its own world-wide network of SSB-Pactor private coast stations in the Maritime Mobile Radio Service. Email that is sent to a SailMail member's email address can be seamlessly retrieved via SSB radio, via satellite, or via any other access to the internet.
*snip*I've built remote posting into Geojoey's map blogging platform so that you can post via email. Simply send an email to post@geojoey.com and the subject of your email becomes the title of your blog entry and the body becomes the posting. The first two lines of the message must contain your remote posting password (configured in your blog settings) and your latitude and longitude. We support 5 different formats for lat/lon coordinates.
Your posting is automaticaly put on your blog/map at the coordinates you specify. You can also set all remote posts to be cross-posted to a custom map and to be added to a journey which is what I've done for my blog. That way your journey is plotted on a map as you travel. You can also include the keyword TRAVELMETHOD: in your posting with a travel method like (Airplane, yacht, etc) and we'll put little icons on the lines showing how you're traveling.
When I want to post an entry, I use sailmail to email post@geojoey.com with my entry. Most of the time we get a throughput on the HF radio of about 200 bits per second. The best we've ever had is 5000 bits per second. During daytime we use 10MHz or 13MHz and at night we use 6 or 8 MHz. Higher frequencies are better because they provide higher bandwidth.
The transmitter we're using is an ICOM marine HF radio and I can't remember the exact model number. It is 100 Watts and has an antenna tuner. We use a Pactor III USB modem attached to the radio for comms with Sailmail. I'm often amazed at how resilient the modem/encoding is. We sometimes have bad interference with pops and whistles and it still gets through. Switching off all fans and flourescent lighting on the boat improves the received signal quite dramatically.
The best time for transmitting is night time, but it's also when the frequencies are the busiest so I often upload during the day.
That's all for now. If you're interested in getting a blog on a map, then signup with Geojoey and check out your blog settings page for remote posting.
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