I own and use a Iridium satellite phone for personal use for about the last 10 years or so. I also own a InReach SE that I purchased after my first generation ACR PLB battery died, What I learned early on with the phone was that I had to pay attention to how clear a view of the sky I had and even then there was no guarantee that I'd have a good signal. It all depended on where the satellites were in the sky. And signal strength it can be found in odd places, recently in the Grand Canyon I had poor service at Boat Beach but at our campsite at Bright Angel campground I had the strongest signal I'd seen in a while. Here in Southern Nevada I have dead spots where I know I have to climb higher so the phone can find the satellite. Since InReach has been around I've also noticed that more calls have not been able to complete, requiring redialing. The other thing to keep in mind is that the phone number for the phone, at least for mine is an international number and not all phone providers will let international calls go through. The advantage of the phone is voice and you know whether or not you have connected can a more in depth conversation for 45 cents a minute. I use mine to let my contact know that the plans I made have change and to answer any questions they have about those changes.
When I got my ACR my dad was the main contact for me. When talked to him about it he said he had only one question. If for some reason I fell down and was knocked unconscious would it send an alert. After I told him no it wouldn't, that I'd have to activated his reply was simple What good is it then. So my advice is get the InReach, setup the account, preset the messages and leave the InReach in tracking mode the times you are moving so your wife can go online to the map and see where you've been within a 10 minute window.
When I got my ACR my dad was the main contact for me. When talked to him about it he said he had only one question. If for some reason I fell down and was knocked unconscious would it send an alert. After I told him no it wouldn't, that I'd have to activated his reply was simple What good is it then. So my advice is get the InReach, setup the account, preset the messages and leave the InReach in tracking mode the times you are moving so your wife can go online to the map and see where you've been within a 10 minute window.
