On Wednesday, 3 June 2020 02:33:24 UTC+2, wrote:
Fine subscription product, but it also relies on the same cell phone reception which is, at best, iffy above ~4,000ft agl. One can buy small cell "booster" units that marginally improve reception. Ideally, you'd want a satellite phone or small sat receiver that can process the raw GOES data on board. Unless someone knows that Stratus/Siriius already provides this capability. And, yes, I would pay a chunk of money to know if that cumulus street I'm in extends more than the couple miles I can see ahead. Wouldn't have to worry so much about firing up the turbo.

Iffy is typically enough - really, try mounting it above the canopy rail and you'll see reception frequently enough to download a satellite image in almost all flying sites every half hour.

I've heard all manner of theories as to why it doesn't work in region X because the cell phone towers point down or there's too many cells etc etc, but the majority report it actually does work when they actually no longer keep their phone in the side pocket or only pop it out occasionally, see no signal then put it back.

In some regions I've had better results disabling 2G on my phone (4G/3G only).

Tested personally in Europe at FL200, in Namibia/South Africa/Minden at FL180, in Australia at FL160.

Some users have bought satellite wifi units but they're prohibitively expensive unfortunately.
I hope that in the future we'll see decent 4G antennas in the tail plumbed directly to instruments so that this isn't an issue any more.

A ground-based ADS-B solution would be great but will likely only ever be a regional setup.