Satellite phone for trip from Margaret River to Melbourne

Ando
If your heading across the Eyre Highway
I wouldn't bother with a Sat Phone save your money
and spend it on the night life when you get there.
Plenty of traffic heading both ways all year round
Norm

Hi Ando

If you have a life threatening medical condition that could require emergency assistance, be self sufficient and hire one. If your vehicle is sound and you are in reasonable health, you should have no need for emergency assistance. Do you have a UHF fitted? If not, get a hand held or two so you can communicate with traffic near you and so they can address you. If you have Telstra Next G or 4 G (which diverts to the other Telstra services) mobile telephone you will get patchy reception across the Eyre Highway and through most of the areas you will travel.Check the coverage map Telstra mobile phone coverage

Motherhen

Hi Ando

There is an excellent article on this site that was done recently and is worth a read if you haven’t already and is located at the following link.

Satphone article

We have a Globalstar Satphone which is through Pivotal which has an entry cost of $499 without a government subsidy and a casual plan of $15 per month. Globalstar will give you excellent coverage for the area you are travelling.

Cheers, Baz – The Landy

As has been said Telstra coverage is available in patches all the way across. It is available the full length of the Trans Australia railway and as soon as you get within anything up to 60k's from it depending on your aerial, phone and altitude you will have coverage.
Plus a few of the roadhouses/towns have local coverage.
Very rare to not have some sort of coverage on most major roads these days through Telstra.

When we last went across to the west we had limited coverage on 3G, but when we came back 3 months latter we had a let better coverage. Most times standing on the roof rack, on one leg but we got coverage. That was 3 years ago.

I believe its getting better. We also use an external antenna now which helps a lot.

I agree..having driven the Eyre Hwy a few times...1st coomunications option is a UHF..then a Telstra service smart mobile phone.

Gidday

I have driven across the nullarbor twice, both times in the days before mobile and sat phones had been invented. Thousands have done the same. These days I reckon a couple of days away from the phone and the temptation of the internet is a bonus!
If you can, take a bit of time and enjoy the journey.

Cheers