Communications when on the road - what will work where you plan to go?

The above only works for Telstra carriers.

Sorry I am not sure I follow that - the mobile phone network as I understand it is land/tower based. Some towers may or may not talk to the satellites to transfer your call but the mobile phone can only talk to the towers - unless of course you have a satphone jacket fitted to the phone in which case it is a Sat phone.

Can you explain your statement that your telstra mobile phone can talk direct to the satellites?

Thanks

Garry

Hi Garry,

I don't have a satphone jacket fitted, neither do the others when travelling remote, but we have carried a sat phone but not always.

There have been certain times when in remote place with common knowledge that there is no mobile phone coverage, however, for example when remote fishing say at Coombra Beach Yalata SA in November, we that are on a Telstra network can get limited coverage only at certain times of a 24hr day, but others on different networks can't.
When I say certain times of the day, I mean those who have a Telstra network check for coverage throughout the day and evening until someone gets a connection then we all call home from our own phones. Coverage will last for a few minutes, enough to tell family we are fine then stops at the same time for all of us.
It's even worked in so called non-coverage areas from the south to the north of the Flinders Ranges.

Whether its pot luck or not, we always seem to be able to get coverage every now and then. Also at these times we are not on the move, we are camped.
Salt Creek SA, from the Murray Mouth to 42 mile has also worked at times.

We always put in down to that a network carriers satellite must be in the midst.

All mobile phone communications in Australia are via microwave towers.

They transmit via line of sight through repeaters or via cable.

Only one Thuraya phone does both

Cruiser that has nothing to do with satellites - even though the wavelength used by the mobile network is line of sight in certain circumstances you may get some bounce off the upper layers in the atmosphere, particularly at night. The HF band relies on this as a basic function of its propagation.

The reason this worked with Telstra is because they have a greater coverage out west. You were out of line of sight range of a tower but the atmospherics were just right to bounce the signal. If there had been an Optus tower next to the Telstra one you used then Optus users would have had a signal.

We used to get this on ships where a 40nm radar could pick up ships many more miles away when atmospherics were right.

Is atmospherics not satellites.

Garry

I travel widely in remote and also areas where a weak mobile signal (Telstra) can at times be intermittent....in that case its usually in the cool of the day/am/pm evening...when you may have limited success

I add that even if you cannot get a signal bar displayed or make a voice call it often can happen that an SMS can get through in both directions .....not sure why but a fact

As for satellites....they are not part of the Telstra land mobile connection as others have said.

cheers

Thanks for the heads up Garry.

Thanks Tom. If a story like that is being circulated it needs to be stopped as it could be the matter of life and death when it means someone has been misinformed and doesn't have the right communications equipment for where they will travel.

The initial reason for Grant commencing the Staying in Touch publication was because he found so many people had been mislead as to the capabilities and coverage of their mobile phones.

112 can be called from a mobile phone in a service area, but 000 will work from mobile, fixed phones and satellite phones alike with no advantage in using 112. They will look for any mobile network, not just your own.

Ideally, key 000 into your phones as the emergency number. As this forum does not have facility to bold or highlight text, I have emphasised the salient point in upper case in the following extract.

From acma.gov.au website:

"Can I call 112 from a mobile phone?

Yes, 112 is a secondary emergency number that can be dialled from mobile phones in Australia.

Special capabilities, including roaming, once only existed when dialling 112, however mobile phones manufactured since January 2002 also provide these capabilities when dialling Triple Zero (000) to access the emergency call service. It is important to realise that if there is no mobile coverage on any network, you will not be able to reach the emergency call service via a mobile phone, regardless of which number you dialled.

Will a 112 call be carried by satellite if there is no mobile coverage?

No. Satellite phones use a different technology and your mobile phone will not be able to access a satellite network.

IF THERE IS NO MOBILE COVERAGE, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO REACH THE EMERGENCY CALL SERVICE VIA A MOBILE PHONE.

Can I call 112 from any type of service?

No. Dialling 112 is only works for digital mobile phones."

Yeah good clarification as I forgot to put in "From Mobile phones"

The main point is that there is no reason to use 112 at all, as now 000 is the preferred number from all phone, including mobile and satellite. Thanks for bringing it up Tom.

There is also 106; the text-based emergency number for people who are deaf, or who have a hearing or speech impairment. This service operates using a textphone (TTY) or a computer with modem access.

Just as a side line comment, a few years ago I saw a survey where they asked people (in Australia) what was the emergency phone number and a large majority said 911, they must watch a lot of U.S.A. cop shows on TV

Thanks for your in-depth feedback Sat Phone Sales. If Grant is not already following this thread, I will draw his attention to it.

Hi All

Sat Phone Sales and I have had a good discussion about many of the issues raised here and more....and we're going to address these issues ASAP. Sat Phone Sales are going to answer many questions and fill in other information 'gaps'.... we'll include it in the ebook and also post a link to it here for all to read. Thanks to Sat Phone Sales for this :-)