Transmitting Data

As many of you know I have started to build a ten foot (3m) micro yacht
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-building/manies-ten-51428.html

I am looking for sponsors every where I can.

A friend that is doing climate research at a University suggested that I fit the boat with a system that automatically transmits on the hour - position - time - water temperature and windspeed.
Now thats a lot easier said than done.

The basic equipment that I envisage on board is a AIS transponder and a satellite phone. I like the Raymarine C series as they can network HOWEVER has anybody ever tried to automatically transmit data via a Iridium phone?
To do something like this manually would be not be good at all, it would never be accurately on the hour.

Obviously the system needs to be very low power consumption.

Any ideas?
Suggestions?

:idea:

 

Would Spot help?

http://www.findmespot.ca/en/index.php?cid=117

http://www.findmespot.ca/en/index.p...=spot global phone&utm_campaign=2014_brand_en

https://www.findmespot.ca/en/

 

I had a look a Spot but cant find any evidence that it was networked into a Raymarine or similar system?
Maybe somebody else has heard or seen this been done?

 

One thing that worries me is that spot seems to have limited coverage.
I got this map of their website.
http://www.findmespot.ca/en/index.php?cid=108#tab2

Makes me feel even more isolated in deepest darkest Africa
And the southern ocean is obviously not a very popular place!

 

http://arduiniana.org/libraries/iridiumsbd/

Arduino also has stackable interfaces including NMEA - If you are just sending an hourly data 'chirp' you could automate that with ease - the 270 byte limit may sound like a miniscule amount, but your GPS coords are only going to take up 4 bytes, even standardised universal time is only 8 bytes, with the other variables you could send every 6 hours and still be able to log on the hour.

i.e record hourly and send 4 times daily.

the flip side is if you did it real time, the phone may already code the GPS coords and UT as part of it's own intrinsic signal, so all you need is the temp and wind data.

 

Andy thanks, great post !!