Everest Million climber Daniel Hughes has described the relief he felt on reaching the summit of the world's tallest peak.
Everest Million climber Daniel
Hughes has described the relief he felt on reaching the summit of
the world's tallest peak.
First video call from Everest using Cobham
EXPLORER 700
Cobham sponsored Daniel said: "Everest was a job. My mission was
to get the Comic Relief red nose to the top and make the video
call."
He succeeded on both counts. The BBC interrupted their scheduled
programming on 20 May to go live to Daniel at the summit, where he
was interviewed with the UK charity's iconic red nose clamped on
his oxygen mask.
Historic call
To make that famous call Daniel used the Cobham SATCOM
EXPLORER 700 BGAN terminal which allowed him to make the
historic video call on his HTC smartphone.
"I called the BBC on my IsatPhone Pro to give them a 10-minute
heads-up, then got everything ready.
"BGAN was flawless. It was as if I was setting it up at sea
level. I've been testing the kit for two years and this was text
book."

360-degree view
Viewers were able to share the 360-degree view from 8,848 metres
(29,029ft) as Daniel panned round with his smartphone.
For Daniel, a commercial airline pilot, the culmination of two
and a half years' planning and training was a brief pause at
the top of the world before he began the treacherous descent.
"I was nervous being there," he admitted. "I didn't want to
stand there for 20 minutes taking it all in - I just wanted to
go.
Dangerous peak
"Everest is a big, dangerous mountain, and you don't celebrate
until you get back down to base camp and count all your fingers and
toes."
The toughest part of the entire challenge was waiting to make
the final ascent at the Hillary Step - a 12-metre (40ft)
near-vertical rockface leading to the summit.
"It gets quite clogged with people, and you just have to wait at
the bottom of the step, knowing that the weather can change very
quickly and that you only have a finite amount of oxygen," he
explained.
Achievement
Drew Brandy, Vice President, Industry
at Inmarsat, said: "Inmarsat congratulates Daniel on his tremendous
achievement in scaling Mount Everest in order to raise money to
combat child poverty.
"We are delighted that we were able to support him with our BGAN
service and provide connectivity throughout the ascent, culminating
in the first ever video call from the summit of the world's tallest
peak."
Now safely back home in London, Daniel continues to work hard to
raise money for UK charity Comic Relief's projects to relieve child
poverty around the world.
The Equipment
First video call from Everest using Cobham
EXPLORER 700
Donate
He can receive donations in the UK via SMS (text Nose70 £1 to
70070) or his website www.everestmillion.com
About Cobham
Cobham protects lives and livelihoods with its differentiated
technology and know-how, operating with a deep insight to customer
needs and agility. The Group offers an innovative range of
technologies and services to solve challenging problems across
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depths of the ocean. It has market leading positions in air-to-air
refuelling; aviation services; audio, video and data
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About Cobham SATCOM
Cobham SATCOM develops, manufactures, sells and supports
satellite and radio communication terminals and earth stations for
land, marine and airborne applications. With the ever increasing
demand for communication, our products and services are used to
satisfy the needs of a wide variety of commercial, governmental and
recreational applications.
Cobham SATCOM uses state-of-the-art technologies to design
affordable, highly reliable high performance systems that have
decreased over time in terms of size, weight and power consumption.
Our products enable people to stay in touch under the most
challenging and demanding conditions. When traditional
communication technologies fail, Cobham SATCOM's products will keep
providing our customers with high quality voice, data, and
multimedia communications.
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