More on the HF Adventure

Any time mate. Always willing to help out a fellow HFer.

Cheers,

Mark

Hi Doug,
I have used Bushphone for the past 3 years.
http://www.reidsradiodata.com.au/bushtelephone.htm
Their cost structure is slightly different to Radtel but overall the costs would work out similar. The other reason I preferred them to Radtel was they had a base at Woomera, and I became a member of an alternative HF network. Naturally I have no affiliation here - just a customer.

As I said before, theres a learning curve. Just a few pointers
#1 I already had their frequencies programmed into the set when I bought it (along with another 6 pages of frequencies for other stuff).
#2 They supplied laminated instructions on how to make a call from my Barrett 950, and this sits in the glovebox.
#3 Finding the best frequency and base to use is the first trick. I estimate the frequency using the quick formula Freq (MHz) = distance/100 and add 2MHz for daytime and subtract 2 MHz for night. Most calls I make are around 5 to 8 MHz.
#4 I pick a base based on past experience - Alice Springs, Charters Towers, Cowra and Perth are the ones I commonly use for where I travel.
#5 Send Beacon Calls to the base and frequencies that you think will work best, and pick the one that has a nice clear, loud revertive tone. If the revertive tone is scratchy, then you'll be wasting your time. If theres no revertive tone, it means that you're not getting through, or the set at that base is already in use. I usually have a choice of a couple of usable frequencies.
#6 Send the telcall, and the receiver will get a message that "This is a radiotelephone call, please speak after the tone" - the tone will take about 10seconds, so the person at the other end usually says hello a few times before they hear the tone and realise whats going on.
#7 To hang up, I hang up from my HF set. Its too much hassle to instruct the people on the other end how to hang up.

I mostly call my wife or kids, and they understand the way it works - so they know to wait for the tone, and they also know that it is a radio, and can't have us both talking at once. The calls are limited to 6 minutes. I also find that calling in the early morning is the best time - seems to be less "traffic", and the people I call are at home. It also helps if you talk with a slower, clear radio voice.

If someone really wants to contact you, they can phone the Cowra base to get a selcall sent to your set (which needs to be scanning a few of the Bushphone frequencies). I never bother with this - people can contact me through VKS.

So its definitely more involved than using a Satphone, it will take a little while to get the hang of it, but once you've got the hang of it, it works. I'd rather avoid the considerable ongoing expense of running a sat phone for the calls.

Its hard to try all this out until you're out in the bush. I'm in the Western Suburbs of Adelaide and theres just too much interference to use HF locally.

Cheers
phil