All you need to know about Outback 4WD communications

Almost everyone has a mobile phone, but if you are heading out bush in your 4x4, you’ll soon find it won’t pick up a signal.

While you may get phone reception in some towns, for much of the remote Outback you will get no mobile signal, not even to make an ‘SOS’ emergency call.

That is why you need to have an effective way of communicating while in the bush.

Whether it’s a medical emergency or a vehicle breakdown, if you really need help in the middle of nowhere it can turn bad quickly if you have no way of communicating with the outside world.

Unlike a smartphone, which is a cheap solution to the vast majority of our communications needs in the city, there isn’t one catch-all comms set-up when travelling in the bush.

There are many options, depending on where you are going, ranging from a cell phone repeater or a Personal Locator Beacon, to UHF radio, HF radio and a sat phone.

A cell phone repeater should not be confused with a cell phone booster – those are illegal in Australia.

Even then, only some cell phone repeaters are approved for use in Australia, so if you go down this path, be very careful which one you choose and who you buy it from.

A cell phone repeater consists of a module and aerial you fit to your 4WD and costs around $1000 (plus fitting).

The repeater can increase reception range from the typical 30km or so to around 100km.

This is useful if you tend to head out to, for example, the mid-west (in eastern states) where there is reliable mobile reception for up to 100km between cell towers.

If you tend to go bush in national parks not very far from Outback towns, then a cell phone repeater might be useful.

However, setting up a cell phone repeater on your vehicle is hard to justify if you travel straight into the remote Outback, especially if for example you plan to do such travel only once or twice a year.

The repeater won’t work in such remote areas – that is, those that are more than 100km from a mobile tower.

Even if you’re close to a mobile tower in rural areas, you may find you have to change mobile carriers to get any mobile service. Telstra still tends to have the best rural mobile phone coverage.

A CB 477MHz UHF two-way radio is a useful piece of comms gear for staying in touch with those nearby. Longer-distance UHF communications are possible using repeater towers, but can’t be relied upon.

You don’t need a licence to operate a UHF, but there are certain channels you can’t use unless it’s an emergency, and there is a bit of etiquette to learn to get the most out of UHF.

Uses for UHF radio include contacting other road users to ask about local road conditions, to hear first-hand of road closures or other problems ahead or to tell a road train driver of your intention to overtake.

A UHF is a relatively cheap must-have bit of bush comms gear. While you can buy a hand-held 2-Watt unit for less $200, it’s better to get an in-vehicle 5W set-up that will set you back around $500.

Depending on where the UHF aerial is mounted (the higher, the better), you may have clearance issues in some multi-level car parks or garages.

Is a UHF enough? UHF radio is not a direct replacement for a mobile phone when travelling in the bush.

UHF radio has only a line-of-sight transmission of up to 8km, although by using public repeater stations, in theory the range increases up to about 150km.

A realistic range you can expect is about 3km to 5km of clear transmission for most units in vegetated areas.

Outback communications – Quick reference do’s and don’ts
• Do have a 5-Watt UHF radio
• Do have a 406MHz Personal Locator Beacon (PLB)
• Do consider HF radio or a sat phone
• Do keep in touch with someone at home who can call emergency services on your behalf if necessary
• Do take enough medical supplies, food, water and fuel in case you do have an emergency in the bush and are awaiting help
• Don’t rely on just a mobile phone for communicating in the Outback
• Don’t take new comms gear out bush without practising with it first

HF radio is an ideal, reliable long-distance comms unit but requires an operator’s licence.

A new unit is also quite expensive to set up in a vehicle (around $3000) and can have expensive ongoing carriage costs on top of licence costs, depending on how it is used.

HF radio operates on frequencies between 3-30MHz. Radio signals are transmitted from a transceiver into the earth’s atmosphere, where the signals ‘bounce’ off the ionosphere and return to land, where they are received by another transceiver tuned into the same radio band.

This allows HF radio signals to be sent and received over hundreds or even thousands of kilometres.

HF radio has a lot of appeal and versatility if you are planning plenty of Outback travel, but for the occasional trip you may find other options more practical and cost-effective.

A 406MHz Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) is an emergency locator signal device. You only activate a PLB in an emergency, and it is not legal for use on the water – for that you need the marine equivalent, an EPIRB.

When activated (you need to have a view of the open sky for it to work), the PLB sends a unique distress signal to satellites that in turn alerts emergency services.

A PLB is really only useful if you have a medical emergency or are completely lost in the desert and have no other way of communicating (such as a sat phone).

However, at about $350, a PLB is cheap insurance and a worthy comms back-up for any Outback traveller.

Make sure the PLB is registered and stump up the money for a GPS-equipped PLB as it is more accurate.

A satellite phone would seem the most logical direct replacement for a mobile phone when travelling in remote areas.

With a sat phone, you’ll have coverage no matter where you are, provided that you have a view of the sky.

While sat phone units and plans are cheaper than they used to be, it can be expensive to buy one for a once-off use.

However, you can rent a sat phone to keep costs down, or buy one for a long trip and sell it when you return home. Sat phones tend to hold their value.

That said, you still need to do your research before buying or renting one to make sure you have the right phone for where you might need to use it and know what it’ll cost you to use it.

The phone might actually not work where you are, or if it does, give you bill shock when you see later what the call charges were.

Sat phones don’t use Telstra/Optus or Vodafone ground-based phone towers, but rely on line-of-sight to satellites orbiting earth. A sat phone can make and receive calls or text messages and transfer data via a satellite connection.

The three main sat phone providers for airtime or pre-paid plans are Iridium, Inmarsat and Thuraya. Each one has its own set of satellites. Some sat phones are better value than others, depending on where you plan to use them.

If you only need reliable comms in, for example, the Red Centre or Western Australia, a good budget option is a Thuraya sat phone. Thuraya uses a geostationary group of satellites that in effect only provide coverage north of an imaginary line drawn between Brisbane and Adelaide.

For full Australian coverage, an Inmarsat or Iridium sat phone will be needed.

A new satellite phone costs about $1500, but a more cost-effective option from Iridium or Thuraya is a SatSleeve unit which works like a satellite ‘hotspot’ and operates through your smartphone and costs about $850.

A satellite phone airtime plan can be a lot more expensive that a cellular phone plan, depending on how you use the sat phone.

Prices vary a lot and you’ll need to take a deep dive into it to get the right plan for your needs and budget.

To give you an idea, the cheapest at the time of writing was the Thuraya, with a $44 activation fee, $22 monthly access fee and 99 cents per 30 seconds call fee to landline or mobiles (SMS messages $1.10).

Inmarsat pre-paid airtime plans were about $69 a month (as a credit extension on existing credit on a handset) and initial SIM card $33. Iridium pre-paid airtime plans started from $229 for 75 minutes of air time over a one-month period.

Iridium post-paid (which benefits those who expect to receive calls to the sat phone) had a $44 activation fee, $50 monthly access fee, a flag-fall charge of 50 cents and cost about $1.00 per 30 seconds voice call to a mobile phone.

Have a look at a site such as www.satellitephonesdirect.com.au for more details on sat phone plans and call pricing.

In summary, the best compromise of cost and safety when travelling in the Outback is to have a 5W UHF radio – preferably vehicle-based, although a hand-held unit also has its advantages, such as if your vehicle suffers a battery failure – and to carry a 406MHz PLB.

From there, having either a HF radio or sat phone is a very good idea, and so too, of course, is following the basic rules of Outback travel such as telling someone reliable at home where you are going, how long you plan to be away and keeping in regular contact with them while away so that they can call emergency services if necessary.

Also carry enough medical and first-aid supplies, food, water and fuel for your trip.

Lastly (except for the PLB, of course), you should practice using your new comms equipment such as UHF or HF radio and a sat phone so that you’re familiar with operating it.

It is difficult to learn how to use the gear for the first time under the pressure of an emergency.

Always stay with your vehicle if you are lost or have had a breakdown.