Introduction
These are my notes on how to use our Iridium 9555 satellite phone with Windows 10 - it may be of some use to others.
This assumes that you already have your sat phone and computer configured as described in Configuring a Sat Phone.
The Teleport-it application should be running and its firewall setting should be "Unrestricted Internet" - this function isn't used in Windows 10.
The Windows Firewall Control application should be running and set to "Medium Filtering".
You should also have created a file containing a minimal set of Windows Firewall rules (SatPhoneFirewallRules.wfw) as described in Iridium, Windows 10 and Firewalls
It's best to try with a normal (wi-fi) internet connection first and make sure that the emails from and to your sailamail account work before moving onto the satellite phone.
Overview
1. When in "Normal Wi-fi Mode", your Windows Firewall is set up with hundreds of "Allow" rules that allow Windows 10 and its applications to have access to the Internet.
2. When going to "SatPhone Mode" you back up your "Wi-fi Firewall Rules" and then load your "SatPhone Firewall Rules" into Windows Firewall, which ONLY allows the Teleport-it email application to access the Internet - everything else is blocked.
3. When going back to "Normal Wi-fi Mode" you re-load the "Wi-fi Firewall Rules" file.
If sounds like a bit of a chore, but it takes five minutes and I'm often in one or the other Modes for weeks at a time.
Using a Normal Wi-Fi Internet Connection
1. You should have your "Wi-Fi Firewall Rules" loaded in Windows Firewall Control.
2. In Outlook, set the "Work Offline" button to OFF. Outlook will now include your personal email account(s) and the sailamail account in Send/Receive.
3. Click Send/Receive button in Outlook. You should be able to send and receive emails on your personal email account(s) and the sailamail account.
Using a Satellite Connection
1. Backup your "Wi-Fi Firewall Rules" to a file using Windows Firewall Control - Rules Tab - "Export Windows Firewall Rules to a File". Name it something sensible e.g. "YYYY-MM-DD WiFiFirewallRules"
2. Load up your "SatPhoneFirewallRules" file using Windows Firewall Control - Rules Tab - "Import Windows Firewall Rules from a File".
3. In Outlook, set the "Work Offline" button to ON. Outlook will now ignore your personal email account(s) and only Send/Receive on the sailamail account.
4. Compose your weather email request (in your sailamail account) and click "Send" - it will go into your Outbox.
5. Click the Send/Receive button in Outlook. The dial-up popup window will appear - click connect and wait. It takes 15-30 seconds to dial the iridium server and go through the password check. You will see your sat phone go into data connection mode. Outlook should then send and receive emails just on your sailamail account. It takes about 45 seconds in total to log in and send a SailDocs email.
6. Monitor the connection time. Sometimes the connection is not dropped when all the emails have been sent and received. Best thing to do is pull the USB cable out of the phone and reboot the laptop...
7. Wait a couple of minutes to make sure that SailDocs has responded with your grib file.
8. Click the Send/Receive button in Outlook. The dial-up popup window will appear - click connect and wait. It takes 15-30 seconds to dial the iridium server and go through the password check. You will see your sat phone go into data connection mode. Outlook should then send and receive emails just on your sailamail account. It takes about 60-90 seconds in total to receive a 20K GRIB file as an email attachment.
Going Back To Normal Wi-fi Mode
1. Restore your backed-up "Wi-fi" Windows Firewall Rules using Windows Firewall Control - Rules Tab - "Import Windows Firewall Rules from a File".
2. In Outlook, set the "Work Offline" button to OFF. Outlook will now include your personal email account(s) and the sailamail account in Send/Receive.
3. Click Send/Receive button in Outlook. You should be able to send and receive emails on your personal email account(s) and the sailamail account.
Connection Problems
1. If you have problems when in "Normal Wi-fi Mode", try setting Windows Firewall Control to "No Filtering" and try again. If it works then your firewall is configured incorrectly, if it doesn't work then there is something more fundamental.
2. When I'm in "Normal Wi-fi Mode" with a decent internet connection, I've had problems sending attachments on my sailamail email address and found that if I bypass Sailamail's proxy email server, they get through. To do this, change the email server addresses in your Outlook Account settings to "mail.mailasail.com" and try again. Remember to change the server addresses back to 127.0.0.1 when finished (and don't try it when on a satellite connection).
3. Make sure that the Outlook account properties for the yachtalba account have the connection set to "Connect using my Phone" - you don't have to change any other settings (leaving the email server addresses as 127.0.0.1 routes the email through Teleport-it email application.)