Beam me up, Dr.Luke

One of the more surreal aspects of the Mercedes-Benz Canning Stock Route drive has been the ability to rock into a campsite, set up your tent, and then sit around a roaring campfire checking the latest footy results or celebrity gossip on your laptop or mobile phone (or in my case, file an update for motoring.com.au).

With some time to kill at the Bungabinni Well while we wait for a fresh batch of Bilstein G350 shock absorbers to arrive, I asked Dr Luke Bennett, our resident first-aid expert and man in charge of setting up the satellite internet link each night, to explain how it all works…

The Orion portable satellite broadband system takes about 30 minutes to assemble and get going, and comprises an 85cm dish and RFH head ‘probe’, hooked up to a modem, router, and laptop.

The first step is to find a clearing away from tall trees and secure the tripod base onto level ground. The attached dish and RFH head are then pointed at the appropriate satellite.

“You connect a laptop to the router and enter your latitude and longitude, and it gives you approximate calculations as to where to point the dish in three dimensions,” Dr Luke explained.

“And having locked onto a signal (from the satellite), you then fine tune it using the tool which is attached to the dish, which also sends a strength signal back to the laptop…

“We’re pointing 48 to 50 degrees into the west-north western sky… for this particular system there’s one satellite ‘geostation’ in orbit we’re aiming at every night…”

The system is powered by a relatively quiet Honda 20i petrol generator, which hooks up to a 240V powerboard and surge protector.

No IT expert, Dr Luke was still amazed after a week of ‘free’ wi-fi in the bush; how easy it is with the right equipment to set up an internet connection in the middle of no-where.

“You never get used to sitting back around the campfire with a beer, and checking your email, I think it’s just fantastic,” he said.

“I can see it taking off with the grey nomads… every caravan will need one!”

“I’ve been a bit concerned about the corrugations and the vibrations, and all this electronic equipment sitting in a plastic box suspended in foam, but it’s performed faultlessly so far, touch wood.”

Another piece of hi-tech kit designed to make things easier during the trip, has been the latest Hema Navigator HN5i; a portable, on- and off-road GPS unit fitted to the lead vehicle…

Although essentially one, long, single lane track, the Canning Stock Route can cause confusion with the numerous intersections, secondary tracks and by-ways off the main track, and few reliable signposts apart from the occasional “You are leaving the Canning Stock Route”…

“There are the bypass routes that a lot of people have changed, so if you go along all of a sudden you’ll be following the main track and then it will have done a deviation,” explained tour leader, Geoff Becker.

“The good part about (the Hema Navigator) system is that it actually shows you where the track is… so if as we have done a few times, head off the original track, at least we can see if we’re heading in the right direction to hook up to it again.”

The Hema unit includes all of the Hema off-road maps, as well as topographic maps, and has a number of useful functions for any Canning trip, including current GPS position on the map and distance to next point of interest.

“The one I use the most is the odometer, so it gives me the distance from place to place,” Becker said. “I can get an exact position, zoom the map in or out, and get the exact distance to the next well…

“If you look on the (Hema fold-out) map, it’s not that detailed, so on this you’re getting quite detailed information.

“I wouldn’t do a trip like this without one,” he said. “I’m not saying you can’t (do without it), but I think it’s saved us a lot of time… if we didn’t have it we probably would have made more turns than we needed to.”

With the nearest mobile phone tower up to 1000km away, the other essential (and potentially life-saving) piece of clever technology on the trip are satellite phones, which so far have proved useful for the occasional family or business-related call. ??Or, more importantly, arranging the swift delivery of G-Wagen spare parts into the middle of the Gibson Desert…

Tracking the Canning Stock Route: