How do you get Theyr GRIB service via iridium Go!

[Ryearsley]

Hi, I've subscribed to Raymarine's Theyr GRIB service, which works well for me via my ES128 in coastal (read LTE) range. I'm about to head offshore, so can can you provide instructions on how to get my ES128 MFD (current lighthouse release) to play nice with my IridiumGO! over wifi so I can use the Theyr service offshore? I've given it a go (MFD can connect to the iridium GO!) but cant either detect / initiate or use an active 'internet call'. I'm aware that the iridium GO! link is extremely slow (1-2Kbps) and most ports on the iridiumGO! are blocked by default. Please help.

[Chuck - Raymarine - Moderator]

Welcome to the Raymarine Forum Ryearsley,

As long as the Iridium go can provide a good Internet connection that allows the ports below to be open, in theory it should work fine, although expensive and slow.

The issue arises when local network administrators forbid outgoing connections for unknown applications or when local web proxy only allows a very strict subset of http traffic/commands.

In order connections and downloads would be possible, the following should be allowed:

1. Connection to forecast.theyr.com:80 (82.163.72.57 port 80)
2. Connection to kona1server.theyr.com:30080 (82.163.72.56 port 30080)

So one would need to unlock these ports for it to work, the MFDs also ping 8.8.8.8 to check we have a valid internet connection ... this is a Google public DNS.

1-2 Kbps would also be very very slow and very costly, I would think, a file we have just downloaded in the office as a test is 23MB (23000Kb) and at that speed would take 3.19 hours at 2Kbps and 6.39 hours at 1 Kbps. The reviews posted on Amazon for the Iridium Go are not impressive, frequently dropping connections, expensive data plans, and very restricted Internet to only mobile sites only. Please read the MacWorld article [url=http://www.macworld.com/article/3048163/hardware/iridium-go-satellite-hotspot-review-more-like-iridium-no.html
]here[/url].

Based on this the reviews and this articles, this method of accessing Theyr weather would not be recommended. Sorry to be negative, just don’t want to give false hope.

[johndoub]

Chuck,
I just read this thread and am also interested in getting Theyr grib files while offshore.

are you familiar with the Globalstar sat-fi product? it is 5 times faster than Iridium and Globalstar is planning a new much faster sat-fi upgrade for next year.

Are you as pessimistic about that alternative as well?

are there other satellite options for offshore?

thanks.

john

[Chuck - Raymarine - Moderator]

John,

Unfortunately, I don't have any experience with Globalstar sat-fi product. It is accordingly recommended that Globalstar be contacted with the information found within this thread. Please additionally, note that should it be possible to download the GRIB files to a computer via the sat-fi product, then these GRIB files may then be copied to a microSD memory card, which may be inserted into the MFD's microSD memory card reader for use by the MFD's GRIB Viewer application.