HF Radio

Try this firm, highly respected and good service.
If they cannot hire they will tell you where.
www.mobilecomms.com.au
1/53 Boyland Street
Coopers Plains Brisbane QLD> 4108
Australia
Cheers
Pinko

For remote travelling I would recommend a satellite phone first and a HF radio second and of course a UHF for short range comms.

HF 4wd radios are still a viable option for remote travels...... there are many advantages as there is many disadvantages compared to a satellite phone.

HF advantages.
1) Regular scheds with useful information.
2) Tracking service available.
3) In an emergency situation your dealing with professionals.
4) Many add on services available.
5) Help may only be a few kilometers away.

HF disadvantages.
1) Harder and more complicated to use.
2) No good for secure communications.
3) Others unable to contact you direct unless they have a HF radio and the conditions are right.
4) Limited telephone communications and other parties find it hard to use.
5) Atmospheric conditions limiting use.
6) More complicated installation.
7) May not work in all situations.
8) Harder to SMS.
9) More expensive.
10) No good for obtaining general information.
11) No good in a rollover.
12) Can be electrically/mechanically less reliable.

I didn't include the usage costs or access fees as they are about the same.

Yes - HF is entirely viable (quite reliable even) for Cape York - there are various service providers that can cover that area (plus the rest of Australia). I only have first hand experience with VKS-737 though (I'm a member / staff volunteer)....our two Charters Towers bases cover the Cape easily (unless adverse atmospherics step in). Other members here can hopefully provide comment on the performance of other providers for that region. There is comment on this site, plus atVKS-737 ... Satphones ? re HF versus Satphones. HF is my choice, but many travellers prefer Satphone for their primary remote comms.... its a free country ! Oh..... one HF radio outlet I know of in Qld is here - I don't know if they hire.

Hi just sold the HF and bought a sat. phone. Main reason was ease of use for my wife, and we now have small kids also. Have used the HF for phone calls very successfully, but unless you use it regularly, its a case of remembering the procedures to get a call out. Fun to listen to skeds and chat of a night though.

Wife is an emergency nurse, so the sat phone is loaded with relevant contact numbers should we need it quickly.

Cheers

We had to choose and choose HF via Vks737 and it has proved to be a good choice as info you get is relevant to your situation even if you never make a call.

If I required frequent comms back to home or relatives then I would have gone Sat Phone.

Texting on HF would make it complete and while this is possible with other services its all a bit quirky and expensive.

I will vote for the HF over and above sat phone.

Why; on a trip down to Maytown from Laura had a vehicle with a major front end breakdown. Put out a call on the HF and got an operator in Alice Springs, told him the problem and asked if he could put in a call to wrecker in Mareba. I did not have the number but he looked it up. After a couple of minutes he called back to remind us it was Sunday and nothing was open. Gave us the number anyway. After closing down a voice came on from bloke in Cooktown who heard the call, and said he was heading that way tomorrow and being a mechnaic would assist if required. All turned out well in the end.

2nd time that comes to mind, camped at Durba Springs on the CSR and saw two different people walking around with their sat phone up in the air trying to get a signal. A bloke nearby was using his HF to talk to home.

They are not hard to use, just takes a bit of pratice to get to know the set. That's what the VKS operators will allow you to do, cal them for a radio check when ever you want.

This post has descended into a HF versus Satphone debate, whereas ExplorerGaz originally asked if "HF radio still a viable option for remore radio comms for a Cape York trip?"


Gaz, unless you are going into very unusual locations on Cape York then you have no real need of either HF or Satphone. There are so many travellers out-and-about on The Cape nowadays that you are never far away from assistance if in trouble. Short-range UHF radio could be useful.
Setting up a HF on a hire basis could be difficult so if you had a special need for emergency comms (e.g., specific health issues) hiring a satphone could be easier. It is just like using a mobile phone and hire is readily available.


If you wanted the HF to listen to general chatter then OK, but there is not a lot of that and unless you were experienced with the HF then it would not be easy to join-in anyway.


For the record, I have UHF, HF and satphone. But we go alone into very remote and lonely locations.

Firstly, I have to reveal my interest. I am a Coordinator with the VKS-737 Radio Network, responsible for the Base rosters for South Australia and Eastern states. I am also responsible for the message service. Yes, the message service recording states that it is primarily for messages of an urgent or important nature. Having said that, I have never knocked back a message request.

Messages I've put up for transmission have included ones such as "We will be at..." "Selcall us at [time]" "Ring your sister" and "Birthday greetings to... from..." If necessary, I'll ring back the caller for clarification. Occasionally we need to inform travellers of bad news. Yes, it's an open network but when you're camped on the Gunbarrel Highway, how else can messages be relayed reliably?

SatPhones? Yes they do work. Calls are expensive and I sometimes question their reliability. Two examples: a person suffered a stroke in the Simpson Desert and a SatPhone would not connect. Similar experience on the Canning Stock Route when a traveller broke his leg. Clear sky all around, no SatPhone signal. HF radio worked fine. HF radio service providers generally have multiple frequencies to cope with different atmospheric conditions and times of day. Learning to cope with that doesn't take long.

VKS-737 has 19 base stations around the country, seven of those at RFDS facilities. We monitor via selcall 24 hours a day and run regular voice skeds every day of the year to enable subscribers to call in. Base operators are dedicated volunteers and are willing to help with any situation, or just say G'day and have a chat.

Many people make arrangements to talk directly with others, similar to the old RFDS Galah Sessions. HF Radio does work well, just spend some time familiarizing yourself with it.

Thanks Alan. Yes, we do have problems from time to time resolving callers. When that happens, it's great to have assistance from others who have their radios on and can relay for the caller. At times when conditions are difficult, I do my best to find out approximately where the caller is, then I change to another base if necessary to try to assist the caller. We do encourage callers, if they can't get through on a voice sked to selcall any base on any frequency where they can get a decent selcall revertive tone. The procedures for doing that are published in the reference manual that everyone got a couple of years ago. There is a new one in the pipeline and should come out late this year. Speaking of selcalling (this is for the benefit of VKS subscribers), if you selcall xx01 (where xx is the two digit identifier of a base station) your call will now go to a pool of operators and will be answered by the first available operator. We try to encourage HF radio users to leave their radios on, particularly when voice skeds are happening. A HF radio is basically useless if it spends most of its time turned off. Also, we don't insist on strict radio procedure. A command of English gets people through. We'll talk to any subscriber, even if they are just saying G'day from their driveway at home. Good way to check the radio to make sure it is in good health. Cheers Robert (Mobile 2500)

For ExplorGaz - Sorry, we've got off the track a bit. Hiring HF Radios does not seem to be a popular thing nowadays. It's all related to the work required to install the radio and a HF antenna. Yes, HF Radio will work very well pretty much anywhere around Northern Queensland. We get lots of regular callers from Cape York and The Gulf. You can also look at www.HF-Radio.com.au and see what they have available. I purchased a second hand Barrett 950 for less than $1000. A tapped whip cost about $300 with the base. You can get radios for less than that. Cheers Robert (VKS Mobile 2500)