We have installed an Iridium Go in the aircraft which can be used only via the Iridium Go app for SMS and Voice calling.
I have tried a few SMS weather facilities but so far I haven’t found one which is compatible with an Iridium unit.
We’re too high to use 3G/4G/5G and we have a Collins Proline 21 installation.
Does anyone have a reliable solution?
What about the GLOBALink? Is it too expensive? Or is it just a vapourware?
What about ADLConnect for Iridium GO?
It is not free but it does exactly what you ask for and even much more including METAR/TAF, radar, strikes, infrared, winds, temperatures:
https://golze.tech/iridiumgo.jsp
Isn’t the https://www.autorouter.aero able to spit out SMS with these data on any number?
AeroPlus iPad app used to work with Iridium Go.
I have found SMS message delivery via the Golze ADL150 to be 100% reliable, in both directions.
The ADL is a single product, easy to install, which “just works”.
and we have a Collins Proline 21 installation.
Are you trying to feed data to the Proline displays? That might be a challenge.
I have found SMS message delivery via the Golze ADL150 to be 100% reliable, in both directions.
It’s not exactly like that. It depends on service provider of destination phone and the package this user has contracted. Of course it doesn’t have anything with ADL – it’s 100% reliable but messages can’t be delivered to some numbers. Believe or not some operators have packages that limit getting SMS from foreign services (like ADL which acts like service of German origin).
SMS to real satellite phone numbers seems to be very unreliable. I did trials years ago with a Thuraya phone receiving multiple SMS sent from the ground and some came in, some never came in, some got delayed etc. I got the impression that even some soft quota was in place, maybe to limit cost for the network as my cost was low (the reason I got started on those trials back then).
One could probably build an Iridium SMS based METAR/TAF service by using an actual Iridium phone as the end point etc. and I guess that would be rather reliable. But in the en there is no point to do so. When operating the GO the ADLConnect solution can do so much more. Its only drawback is maybe the cost but running a GO device is not low cost anyway and such Iridium SMS service would not be free either.
I have found SMS message delivery via the Golze ADL150 to be 100% reliable, in both directions.
That is great to hear but there are exceptions. Some ground networks seems not to be reachable with some routes for sending SMS. I have multiple routes to send out the SMS on the ground and have to adjust the rules for those in special cases.
