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Old 12th Jun 2022, 9:39 am   #1
Roger Ramjet
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Default Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

Jobog1 set me thinking about the vast distances in Australia e.g. 3Km between two villages) Then I recalled watching many vintage TV programmes featuring the use of two way radio systems for use by public to make emergency calls to the flying doctor, children being taught over the airwaves etc.

To satisfy my interest further I would be grateful for any comments on my queries below:-

1. Was this "network"' licensed & if so did it have a name ?
2. Were specific frequencies allocated ?
3. What makes of equipment were used ?
4. Would I be right in assuming this system is still in use in low density / population area's where mobile phones & internet may not be viable.

Thanks, Rog
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Old 12th Jun 2022, 11:24 am   #2
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

Hi Roger,

There's a 50s period video on the school of the air radio service here:-

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-...s-70/100196222

In that clip, all the children listening are asked to speak all at once and judging by the mass of heterodynes the service must have used AM. I believe the receiver shown is an AWA set?

Interesting topic!

Cheers

Roger
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Old 12th Jun 2022, 11:40 am   #3
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

From memory, the sets were HF and designed to load into a random wire. Tuning/loading being achieved by observing the brilliance of a small bulb. They were essential on remote cattle/sheep stations to call the flying doctor in an emergency. That was donkey's years ago - possibly they use sat phones these days.
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Old 12th Jun 2022, 11:50 am   #4
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

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Originally Posted by lesmw0sec View Post
From memory, the sets were HF and designed to load into a random wire. Tuning/loading being achieved by observing the brilliance of a small bulb. They were essential on remote cattle/sheep stations to call the flying doctor in an emergency. That was donkey's years ago - possibly they use sat phones these days.
I think there's a HF SSB radio telephone service for travellers off the main highways.
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Old 12th Jun 2022, 12:03 pm   #5
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

At a radio rally some years ago I picked up a Racal 'Javelin' HF SSB transceiver that I understood had been developed in Canada for this sort of service. It had extensive CPU monitoring and looked like it did automatic link establishment etc. It could interface with a landline style phone and there was an RS232 port which I think was for data using an internal modem. Probably rather low data rate, but a vast improvement on nothing.

It used the Rafuse mixer and looked like it covered 2-30MHz. 100W and built for continuous duty.

So transceivers targeting this sort of market are relatively recent

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Old 12th Jun 2022, 12:50 pm   #6
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

You have School of the Air which used to use HF radio and now uses satellite internet.

There is also The Royal Flying Doctor Service which uses a combination of RF and satellite. See https://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/qld/...ack-its-voice/ for a history of that service - those radios were also used for School of the Air services.

And this is the Outback Travellers Radio Service for which you do have to be licensed https://vks737.radio/

Oh, and it is more like hundreds of km between "villages", not 3km
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Old 12th Jun 2022, 3:40 pm   #7
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

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Originally Posted by Terry_VK5TM View Post
You have School of the Air which used to use HF radio and now uses satellite internet.

There is also The Royal Flying Doctor Service which uses a combination of RF and satellite. See https://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/qld/...ack-its-voice/ for a history of that service - those radios were also used for School of the Air services.

And this is the Outback Travellers Radio Service for which you do have to be licensed https://vks737.radio/

Oh, and it is more like hundreds of km between "villages", not 3km
Im an avid watcher of these Outback gold hunters/Opal programmes that are around ,and to be honest im suprised that hardly any of the explorers have any other means of communications apart from a mobile phone which obviously is difficult in the deep outback.
Im sure a satellite phone would be an option in an emergency as a PAYG but noone seems to use them?
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Old 12th Jun 2022, 7:35 pm   #8
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry_VK5TM View Post
You have School of the Air which used to use HF radio and now uses satellite internet.

There is also The Royal Flying Doctor Service which uses a combination of RF and satellite. See https://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/qld/...ack-its-voice/ for a history of that service - those radios were also used for School of the Air services.

And this is the Outback Travellers Radio Service for which you do have to be licensed https://vks737.radio/

Oh, and it is more like hundreds of km between "villages", not 3km
Yep sorry Terry, that was a typo on the distance.... Jobog1 actually quoted 300Km which would mirror your understanding. That's heck of a distance & would make me think again when I moan about having to drive 195 UK miles to see our daughter !

Anyway, some really interesting replies so thanks guys.

Rog
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Old 12th Jun 2022, 11:17 pm   #9
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

NO !!! I quoted 3000 kilometres. and that was from nsw to qld. I was being a smarty saying it that way as I see quite often here that people in GB dont like travelling more than a couple hundred kliks, and that requiring weeks of planning . I do know, even with your "superhighways " you have massive traffic snarls, whereas I can drive for a day and not pass another vehicle, which probably doesnt help you.

AWA did make a lot of radio equipment for the RFDS and school of the air. I dont have an electric wireless anymore, but the one frequency I do remember is 2.102 megs AM. It was still running 20 years ago when as part of a new solar install in the bush we included 2 six metre lengths of aluminium pipe joined together, and a "magic balun " so that people could still chatter on the wireless. It was the general chat frequency, but there were other dedicated frequencies for emergencies. I have forgotten them.

The internet is a major joke in Australia. It comes in many forms. Satelite, which is expensive and slow. Broadband WiFi, wire to to the premises, fibre to the premises and still some co-ax to premises in some locations. If you are going to travel deep into the bush a satelite phone is a must. They dont even cost that much anymore. The phone calls cost would break the bank of Monte Carlo!!!!.

Most people that do a bit of travelling have CB in their cars. UHF for chatting or asking the truck in front to hold one lane while you overtake, ( It can be four, forty foot long trailers ) and 27 megs HF for long distance. That in itself is pretty useless, as it will go a long way. Usually South America, or Indonesian fishermen that flog every channel to death. There is still a fair amount of amateur radio too. I do know there is a few 2 metre translaters on top of hills following the major highways. You will quite often see a car drive past, looking like a porki pine with antennas of all heights poking out at all angles.

Police cars have a dedicated system with big chunky HF antennas screwed to the bullbar. I dont know anything about them at all.

There are quite a few interesting things on youtube to watch if you google RFDS and School of the Air. They will have additional links that will waste hours of time if your interested.

Joe
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Old 13th Jun 2022, 3:41 pm   #10
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

When I worked in the outback in the late 70s/early 80s the RFDS service was HF SSB on particular spot frequencies. There was a two tone alarm calling system. Many companies made suitable kit, we used Stingray and Codan, both mobiles. Codan did a nifty portable set commonly called the lunch-box, built in ATU for random bits of wire. Hook it up to a 12v battery and away you went. 30 watts from memory. We used them extensively in the jungle on PNG (Papua New Guinea).
The school on the air was also HF SSB, great fun listening to the kids singing a song, they of course had no feedback so the timing was all to pot after the first few words.
And yes, everything was licenced and often shared. We, in the nominal south shared a frequency with Thursday Island way up north and had to agree to hold our scheds at different times. I seem to remember most of the time everything was around 5 MHz.
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Old 13th Jun 2022, 7:18 pm   #11
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

I remember, maybe 8 or10 years ago seeing an article about an outback farm transceiver, which I think was made by Pye? It was istr a valve set.
I have looked for the information since without success.
Rob
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Old 13th Jun 2022, 9:46 pm   #12
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

"Outback" radio has all come a very long way since the invention of the pedal operated radio of the 1930's see.


Alfred Traeger - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Alfred_Traeger
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Old 13th Jun 2022, 10:49 pm   #13
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

Codan 6924 "lunch box". Mic and power lead in the compartment on the left. It could be configured for any two of USB, LSB or AM.
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Old 14th Jun 2022, 6:03 pm   #14
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

Codan stuff occasionally turns up here in the UK; it seems to sell cheaply, probably because of the cost of crystals to put it onto 80 Metres!

[I was prepared to pay for crystalls for my AEL3030 because it only took one crystal per channel, and it gives a sensible 150 Watts of SSB].



"Spilsbury" in Canada did a bunch of radios for remote logging-communities; I wonder if there was any sort of attempt to market their gear in Oz? I've got a Spilsbury STA270 'stinger' 3-to-5MHz mobile/helicopter-mountable whip antenna here - only 3 Metres long but it works OK.
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Old 15th Jun 2022, 12:37 am   #15
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

Treager, Codan and another NZ company I can't recall the name of at the moment had Australia fairly well tied up in that respect - Treager and Codan are still going.

There were others, but not with such a big market share.
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Old 15th Jun 2022, 10:42 am   #16
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

Here's a Australian set from my collection ,setup for 160m 80m and 60m
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Old 15th Jun 2022, 1:23 pm   #17
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Default Re: Public 2 Way Radio In Australia

Quote:
Originally Posted by electronicskip View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry_VK5TM View Post
You have School of the Air which used to use HF radio and now uses satellite internet.

There is also The Royal Flying Doctor Service which uses a combination of RF and satellite. See https://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/qld/...ack-its-voice/ for a history of that service - those radios were also used for School of the Air services.

And this is the Outback Travellers Radio Service for which you do have to be licensed https://vks737.radio/

Oh, and it is more like hundreds of km between "villages", not 3km
Im an avid watcher of these Outback gold hunters/Opal programmes that are around ,and to be honest im suprised that hardly any of the explorers have any other means of communications apart from a mobile phone which obviously is difficult in the deep outback.
Im sure a satellite phone would be an option in an emergency as a PAYG but noone seems to use them?
Until last month I had a good friend who lived up in Exmouth right up the West coast of WA. He'd frequently go off alone for weeks at a time prospecting in the outback and did very well at it. Surprisingly well in fact!

On one of my visits we decided to both go prospecting but whilst he had a Radio to call the Flying Doctor it wasn't working.

After giving the radio some TLC and making up leads and a collapsible dipole I gave a call to the Flying Doctor. It was only seconds before receiving a reply. I felt a bit better knowing we could call someone if needed.

Denis
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