The Iridium 9505A is a self-contained sat phone designed to operate in rugged remote areas. Coverage exists worldwide so no matter where you and your boat might be you’ll still be connected to home.
From the factory this Iridium satellite telephone ships with the handset, two batteries, AC and DC chargers, an international plug kit, headset, auxiliary antenna, antenna adaptor, and a leather handset carry case.
Here is the Iridium 9505A with its antenna fully extended.
The sat phone case measures approximately 6.3-inches tall, 2.5-inches wide, and 1.6-inches thick.
The antenna connects on the case back and adds about ¾ of an inch to the overall phone depth.
The antenna rotates and locks in at 45 degrees either side of vertically up for use and vertically down for storage.
At full extension, the antenna reaches to about 9 inches in overall length.
The handset with antenna attached and battery installed weighed in at 13.4 ounces.
The 9505A satellite telephone has a pushbutton to facilitate antenna removal and a status light, both of which are located in the top of the case.
Up/down volume control keys are on the left side. All other controls are on the unit face, they include the on/off button, alphanumeric keypad, scroll arrows, menu, message, OK, and call buttons.
A DC power connector and headset jack are located on the case side. The data connector is on the bottom. Battery access is on the case back, the battery needs to access the SIM card slot.
Since most of us are not used to the international dialing format I found it easiest to make calls by storing my phone numbers in memory and then recalling as needed using menu prompts. The phone will store up to 100 entries with names and numbers.
Performance
The 9505A performed well in our testing. We made voice calls and sent several text messages to see how well the phone worked. Voice calls were clear and crisp every time with no noticeable delay.
When you receive a text message the phone sounds an aural alarm and asks if you wish to read the message now. Pressing OK, and then scrolling as needed, will let you see the text message onscreen. Voice calls worked well when using the accompanying headset too.
The external antenna has a magnetic base and about five feet of cable. You’ll need to place the phone in the antenna adapter to connect the external antenna. Again the phone worked well for voice and text messages when connected to the external antenna.
The accompanying AC and DC chargers both fully charged a depleted battery in only a couple of hours. During our testing the 2230 mAH lithium-ion battery had no problem keeping the phone