mobilr phone coverage

thanks karsten and u 2 willem ,,only seen it on the net ,is probly just a lot of hype ,or getting the outbacks hopes up for the cdma service,,anyway will be up there 2 weeks time (hopefully ) .seeya steve.

Karsten they must be the best paying phone boxes in the nation. I found that political pressure still has some capability after being told that small communities near ski fields were able to attract a tower despite being useful to skiiers only part of the year. I think it depends on wether the MP works hard at it as the Govenment still has a controlling interest and Telstra does still listen to them.

Funny how a small community only 400 kms North has a good working system, but it is a long way to go to use your mobile

On last trip to Birdsville, got a signal for 90k out of Quilpie.
Nothing after that :-)
Few miles and even more kilometres between them.

The worst part of the last trip was a bad bulls eye on the windscreen 100k out of Birdsville from a - wait for it -- a telecom ute coming the other way. Didn't even have the courtesy to slow down or try and pull over a little to minimise stones.

Aahhh John.......You have just reminded me that a Telecom Ute(maybe it was Aust Post ute) threw a football sized stone at me between Normanton and Cloncurry. We could see it bouncing across the dirt road between Normanton and Cloncurry. Luckily it bounced on the bonnet of the Renault, leaving a great big scar, and over the windscreen. Best thing I have found is to drive straight at a Telecon vehicle. The slow down or go bush....lol

My old man use to drive those Telecom 4bies (and they were Telecom back then) in the Pilbra. One of the mine manager's complaind to him once that everytime he passed him all he could see was his hub caps (air born). ;-)
Mind you it was him and one other bloke looking after an area bigger than Japan! Imagine getting a phone call at 2am from the exchange... BEEP BEEP BEEP. The signal of a line fault. You get up and change out of your jim jams and drive 400kms into the middle of no where in some of the roughest country you'd ever seen; by yourself, in the pitch dark, fix a broken wire then drive home have breakfast and go to work....

Nothing personal against telecom workers. Just found it interesting that we are complaining about lack of coverage and the fact that there was a telecom bloke rushing around when we were there.
But having a few telecom friends, I am aware of the cutbacks and sackings.

Yeah we left Marble Bar after 6.5 years up there in about 1988, when we left they closed the exchange and the guys from PortHeadland then had to take over that entire area as well as their own. (right out past telfer) Obivously now days with satalites and all that there would be less work I suppose but when we left there was still plenty to be done up their, not to mention the fact that the wet season was the busy season and it was very rare that the guys from Port Headland could even get accross the Coogan River to Black Rocks (one of the main repeater stations)!! Stupidity it was.
Even back then their was talk about flogging Telecom, that's where the majority of the cutbacks started, to make it "more profitable". I spose dad did alright though, he couldn't stand working in an office after that (he said "I can't get paid for doing nothing, it's not right") he ended up getting a reasonable redunancy and moved on to bigger and better things....