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A comment on Meet the BRCK. Parent comment

Re:Meet the BRCK by sidgup on Monday December 02, 2013 @07:31PM (#6837677)
Exactly! When it said "works in Africa", my first thought was woah, so how does it work without cell coverage - satellite?, APRS?, etc. etc. Only to realize that it is probably just a rugged 3G-Wifi bridge.

Seriously, I even looked through specs and still not sure what it does!

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Re:Meet the BRCK by toomuchtodo on Monday December 02, 2013 @10:14PM (#6838249)
As someone who has done integration with Iridium and Inmarsat for the NSF, I both love and hate this product. It looks like a ruggedized wifi hotspot, but their claim of "works anywhere" is disingenuous.

This is a hotspot that works anywhere in Africa: http://www.groundcontrol.com/MCD-4800_BGAN_Terminal.htm

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Re:Meet the BRCK by ihnorton on Tuesday December 03, 2013 @08:18AM (#6840022)
> As someone who has done integration with Iridium and Inmarsat for the NSF

USAP vessels?

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Re:Meet the BRCK by toomuchtodo on Tuesday December 03, 2013 @11:29AM (#6841235)
Very close :) Weather stations, same region.
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Re:Meet the BRCK by ihnorton on Thursday December 05, 2013 @02:26PM (#6856543)
Ah, neato. I spent a lot of time staring at the Inmarsat signal strength down there!
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Re:Meet the BRCK by girvo on Tuesday December 03, 2013 @01:31AM (#6838969)
Iridium, neat. What was integrating it like?
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Re:Meet the BRCK by toomuchtodo on Tuesday December 03, 2013 @01:41AM (#6838986)
Very straightforward. Iridium phones have a module you can use that exposes an RS232 interface; integration with either a microcontroller or a full blown computer is trivial.
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