Making Satellite Calls With A 1973 Telephone (And Inmarsat Mobile Terminal)

Video Description

Voice phone calls are so last century... so lets see if we can make some with a 1973 handset, a DTMF keypad from the 1990s, and a satellite terminal from 2009. I tried giving @userscott a call in the UK and it worked great! This is a Glocom (Hughes) GX-10, and uses the Inmarsat network of geostationary communication satellites. It has an array of helical antennas for L-band inside a small radome. I've been seeing a lot of Inmarsat equipment available lately for cheap / free. It seems to be going obsolete as Starlink and other modern providers take over the satellite communications market. People sometimes confuse me with @peterfairlie2296, check out his channel for more satellite phone stuff! Big thanks to an anonymous donor for sending me the Inmarsat terminal (you know who you are :-) ) Also huge thanks to my Patreon supporters & Youtube members for helping me make sound financial decisions like this. A SIM card for less than an hour of talk time and 5.5MB on a 15-year-old satellite phone was not cheap! Fortunately the service is still available, I'm not sure if cell phones from 15 years ago would even work today! Saveitforparts t-shirts and other merch at https://saveitforparts.myspreadshop.com/ Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNLRcEn78Vc62C3GkMvBgtA/join Or support me via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/saveitforparts Check out gadgets and devices I like at https://www.amazon.com/shop/saveitforparts