Saturday, Aug 07, 2010 at 12:37
Hullo
John
I recently faced this decision and, after a lot of research on this and other sites, chose HF. One source I found invaluable was a thread on this site from Oneput (I think it was), someone who had a wealth of experience and had used both.
Some of my own reasons were -
* HF is a broadcast technology - that is, when you make a call, everyone can hear it. It may
well be that you are stuck somewhere in the bush and making a call to one of the base stations asking for assistance and someone replies who is "just around the corner" and offers to help. If you listen in to a sked, this happens often. A sat phone can not, and will never be able to, replicate this as it is "one to one" call
* If you have a sat phone, who do you call in times of need? The HF base station operators have at their fingertips a range of resources that they personally have experience and credibility with - be they police, RFDS, local repair/recovery
services, etc.
* Sked times often reveal a wealth of useful info - roads conditions, weather, good campsites, who else is on the road near you (who you may, or may not, wnat to meet up with :-), etc. And you can let them know where you are and where you expect to be the next night - if anything untoward happens, someone knows your latest plans and can initiate a search if you don't respond to a scheduled call
* Reliability - it would seem that at nearly all times, you can get throught to someone on HF. Although the technology is improving, that would not seem to be the case with satphones.
* And if you are on your tod, or just the 2 of you, it is good to know that you are a member of a "community", albeit that you don't have to have direct contact with them if that is your choice
Regards
Andrew
AnswerID:
426484
Follow Up By: Member - John B2 (VIC) - Saturday, Aug 07, 2010 at 14:31
Saturday, Aug 07, 2010 at 14:31
Hi Andrew,
I was leaning toward HF because of the many points you have laid out.
More seeking confirmation from some who has one.
Thanks,
John
FollowupID:
697061
Follow Up By: Pete Jackman (SA) - Wednesday, Aug 11, 2010 at 14:01
Wednesday, Aug 11, 2010 at 14:01
We looked at both and went HF for all the reasons Andrew lsists above. Our second hand setup cost a total of $750 for a Codan radio, older autotune and a Jenal microphone so we have selcal and telcall access as
well.
We have never failed ot get someone and have enjoyed the sense of community when out and about. We were away in remote SA late October last year and the HF was the only contact with anyone for days at a time. We saw very few vehicles but it was good to know that there wereothers out and about at the same time.
Cheers
Pete
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697528