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Helping cruisers decipher satellite communications and simplify email and weather access is one of the aspects of OCENS that makes us who we are. We’ve long recognized the human side of this important market sector; the fact that most cruisers have worked hard in their chosen careers to now set off to pursue a dream and that a big part of that new life is reliably communicating with friends and family. The last thing you now need is a salesman pitching the latest gadget because it nets him the highest commission. Instead, we seek to be an honest broker of your options by listening to your interests, discussing your destinations and recognizing your budget before recommending the satellite system and data services best matching those conditions. We then provide professional staff after the sale is complete to help you install and begin to use these voice and data services. After all, you haven’t spent eight hours of every day for the last 15 years making your computer work with your satellite phone…OCENS has.
 Iridium 9555 Satellite Phones and Accessories
In the ever-changing landscape which is the handheld satellite phone market, Iridium has stood out for the last several years as a clear leader in voice and data communications.The 9555 is the latest in Iridium’s long line of rugged satellite phones. Docking stations with a diverse array of capabilities (and prices) are available for cruisers who will be depending on the phone for routine, if not daily, voice and data access. External antennas and cabling complement these stations for around-the-clock, all-weather access to your email and weather information and phone calls. OCENS offers the full range of prepaid and postpaid airtime plans available from Iridium as well as some plans it has crafted itself to meet the unique needs of the cruising community.
Isatphone
The IsatPhone is Inmarsat’s handheld satellite phone. Equipment and airtime pricing make it an excellent choice for low to mid-latitude voice services. Docking stations and active antenna systems are a must if convenient access at-sea or at higher latitudes is necessary. Postpaid airtime plans are available to US users while prepaid and postpaid airtime can be used when outside of US waters and all are available from OCENS.
 OCENS Mail
Our satellite email service, OCENS Mail, was crafted with the cruising market in mind. Create your email offline when you aren’t being billed for airtime. Send that email at the click of a button by auto-dialing your satellite phone and crunching those emails to the smallest size possible. If your connection to the satellite drops, don’t start the email transfer from the very beginning but instead pick up where you left off when the connection is re-established. And if someone sends you a ‘too-big’ attachment don’t just pass it (and the double- or triple digit airtime expense) along to you but instead shunt it off to our mail server and send you a small note letting you know its waiting for you when you get to your next high bandwidth connection. All of it bundled alongside of a convenient wizard helping you to install your satellite phone and presented with 3, 6 or 12 month mail service terms to best match your cruising plans.
Sailblogs
We’ve reached out to the popular Sailblogs site and developed a module for OCENS Mail allowing you to submit blogs quickly and easily inside of your OCENS Mail traffic. Just activate the Sailblogs module and create your blog post. Include pictures and your position if you want. Then on your next email transfer, OCENS Mail compresses and automatically passes your blog entry onto Sailblogs.
WeatherNet
WeatherNet is still the only weather service that allows you to pay only for the weather you use. It now contains the largest collection of Gridded Binary (GRIB) data ideal for the efficient relay of weather information through satellite phones. But it also doesn’t overlook the important perspectives added by classical information such as weather charts, text forecasts and buoys. Like OCENS Mail, WeatherNet delivers its weather data to you by auto-dialing your satellite phone and connecting to our weather servers. Once the data is on your computer, WeatherNet auto-disconnects, then launches the appropriate software to view and analyze the information pertinent to your next route.
GRIB Explorer
GRIB Explorer is our GRIB viewing software. It works seamlessly with WeatherNet to display GRIB information and tune it to your needs. Animate multi-day sequences of GRIB data, view position information, and effortlessly analyze frontal information, precipitation, waves and winds. 3D views add further perspective. Special 2D time and spatial graphs offer special insight. All in all, GRIB Explorer packs more analytical horsepower into its package than any other GRIB viewer on the market today.
 MetMapper
MetMapper delivers a weather-watching experience completely different from that of the picture software with which most classical weather data is viewed. It does so by adding an interactive map layer to weather and ocean charts downloaded from WeatherNet that transforms these pieces of weather data from static pictures into dynamic tools for analysis and decision-making. Add routes, create waypoints and routes, annotate, and place auto-georeferenced bearing and range markers right on the chart in front of you. Window text forecasts alongside charts and satellite images for a rapid translation of the data into real-time planning information. Animate series of charts to put the weather in motion. In many ways, MetMapper accomplishes with classical data what GRIB Explorer does with GRIB information. Just another way that OCENS provides unique solutions to the needs of the cruising community.
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