Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 12:50
Hi GMD,
To answer your questions:
"You are using VKS737 as your sig says ... so why do you use it ?"
"no license ?" Partly, I can use 100W and a foundation only gives me 10W. Also I have no interest in getting involved in the ham networks at the moment. I have a mate who is very keen and keeps encouraging me to get my foundation but that is the difference between us. I see HF as a tool and he uses it a hobby. It is like my 4WD. I don’t go out and find difficult tracks to drive down for the sake of four wheel driving. I have a 4WD to get us to all the interesting
places we want to visit and experience.
“functionality ?” Not really, I have an older Codan with a Jenal microphone so I can get Selcall and Telephone Interconnect. Simplicity – yes.
“community ?” Definitely. While camped at
Cullyamurra Waterhole last year we listened to VKS737 helping out someone stuck on the
Walkers Crossing Track and they had all the contacts they needed at their fingertips. In the end the chap was helped out by another VKS mobile user who was 50km down the road. This would be difficult to arrange through a Ham network and there are a lot of VKS mobile users out and about during the travel season. The VKS operator also has access to all bases and frequencies and in some cases a choice of different aerial arrays to work a difficult contact. On another occasion I met up with a guy whose landcriuser had locked him out (in a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances). VKS set up a telephone interconnect with a Toyota mechanic who walked him through how to break into the vehicle.
“speed of response ?” Again Yes. I can selcall a VKS base 24/7 and get a response and assistance from a team who will know where to go to for help. I can also press the
big red button and wake up a RFDS base for emergency assistance.
The last two points were the significant ones for me in my choice. We looked at the whole remote area comms and safety thing last year before we went on a trip to the
corner country. I am very familiar with the vagaries of HF having been a military communications officer and spent many years at sea at the end of a HF link. We had the choice down to:
HF (HAM or Network)
SATPHONE
SPOTEPIRBSPOT while useful is very limited and we discounted that.
EPIRB has one use only – emergency response in a life threatening situation and we will probably get one at some stage.
For assistance in an emergency I could see little difference between Ham Radio and Satphone other than cost. In both cases I would be reliant on knowing who to call myself and then them knowing who best to help me and being able to get them to respond. I also lose the possibility of someone camped on the other side of the sand
hill either hearing the interaction or being called by the base operators to give me a hand.
In the end we decided on land mobile HF and I got my whole setup (Codan 8525 radio, Codan autotune aerial and Jenal Microphone) and installed it for less than $800. It is a simple system that works. While you have listed a whole heap of
services available to ham operators they all come at a cost in both dollars and the time to learn how to best use them.
We are happy with our choice – proven equipment and a network that works for us every time we call up at the price of 6 tanks of fuel and one tank a year.
Cheers
Pete
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