Anytime, anyplace, anywhere (part two)

Part two of Paul Deegan's excellent feature on expedition technology in the February issue. Here, Felicity Aston reveals how she sent podcasts to her website during a double traverse of Greenland

Podcasting from the field

Felicity Aston used an audio set-up on her 2007 Arctic Foxes expedition to Greenland to send back regular podcasts to The Sun’s website and iTunes. A simple telephone call to ‘jConnect’ [sic] from her Iridium handset meant that there was no need to spend time connecting PDAs or computers. “We simply rang a number, talked to a computer-based answerphone for as long as we liked, and hung up. Our message was recorded as an MP3 file which was automatically emailed to our webmaster, who then uploaded it to our expedition website. [An alternative to jConnect is ‘Gabcast’ – Equipment Ed.]

“Having an audio account for people to follow rather than a straight text diary made a huge difference. By hearing your voice, people got a much better feel for what was going on - they could hear the tent fabric snapping in the wind, hear the stove spluttering, and hear the fatigue or excitement in our voices. By having someone talk to them directly from a tent in a remote corner of the world, it made the whole thing seem much more real than simply words on a screen. It was almost as if the listener was in Greenland with us for a few moments.” www.felicityaston.co.uk

Employing a Mac on an expedition

Ed Stafford is currently part-way through a trek along the entire length of the Amazon. He is carrying a MacBook, which is connected with a LAN cable to a Thrane & Thrane Explorer 500 BGAN. “It just works,” says Ed. This hardware combination allows him to edit and send video footage to his website. However, even with four Powerfilm solar panels linked together, charging and running the laptop has proved impossible. The current solution is to connect a 12 volt dry battery to two solar panels when camp is established each afternoon. A Kensington portable power inverter is then used to link the battery and computer.
www.walkingtheamazon.com

Using a commercial PDA software package to record an adventure

Utilising Human Edge Tech’s popular ‘Contact 4.0’ and ‘Contact Geo Tracker’ software, Hannah McKeand was able to update her geographical position on a map embedded in her website on a daily basis during her record-breaking South Pole expedition. McKeand will be using the same software package on her 2009 North Pole expedition.
www.hannahmckeand.com

Three ways to stay in touch

1. Maximum flexibility
Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop tethered a Hughes 9201HNS satellite modem to a Panasonic Toughbook in order to take full advantage of relatively fast upload speeds on Inmarsat’s Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN), which covers the majority of the Earth’s surface outside of the polar regions. BGAN is the optimum solution for expeditions who wish to send back video footage regularly. www.digitalexplorer.co.uk

2. Bare Bones
The Iridium 9505 handset is capable of sending and receiving short SMS messages. Alex Hibbert put this feature to good use by sending daily updates directly to his website during a 1400 mile unsupported expedition across Greenland. This affordable messaging system saved him from having to carry additional communications gear, at the expense of truncated descriptions on the expedition’s blog. www.tisogreenland.com

3. Lightweight PC
In 2008, Chris Bray and Clark Carter coupled a tiny Asus computer to an Iridium ’phone with a PL-2303 cable in order to blog back from their expedition to cross Victoria Island. The Asus has solid state memory, making it resistant to shocks that would trounce a conventional spinning hard drive. The duo tested the computer down to -38ºC prior to departure. The Asus does not come with a CD tray, but does accept flash cards from many cameras and camcorders. The team did not send video over Iridium: “That would have been a nightmare” says Bray. They used Adobe Lightroom to sort, compress and export digital pictures for upload to the expedition website. These were sent using Global Marine Networks’ xGate software. www.1000hourday.com

Stockists & Information for the ‘Ten of The Best’