Technical Post - Communications on Board

The communications centre (also doubles as our saloon table)

In the not so good old days, (25 years ago) communications were quite different from today. Most coast boats carried a HF radio, 27MHz radio and if you could afford it, a VHF radio. 

The VHF radio enabled you to keep in touch with the OTC Seaphone service. This service enabled you to make operator assisted calls through to the phone network. It cost around $2.00 per minute and worked well if you were in range of the Telecom towers.

Outside of these areas, you relied on the HF radio. The reception was subject to changes in atmospheric conditions and reception could be perfect one day and abysmal the next day.

Boat to boat communications was on 27MHz. This is a similar band to CB radios. Range was around 5-20 miles if you were lucky.

VHF radios started to come down in price and a number of talk through repeaters were established by community groups like Coast Guard, to boost range. With repeaters, you could get up to 50 miles range. In Moreton Bay, Redcliffe Coast Guard have a repeater channel (ch 21) at the top of Moreton Island which provides reliable communication from Maroochydore south to Amity. In the Great Sandy Straits, there is a repeater (ch 80) which gives coverage from Maroochydore to the southern tip of Fraser Island, and Ch 82 which gives coverage from Tin Can Bay to Moon Point. For boat to boat and boat to shore communication, VHF radios are now the norm. 

Newer VHF radios have a Select Call feature for “buddy” communication. Our VHF also is connected to the GPS. In the event of an emergency, we have a distress button, which digitally transmits our GPS coordinates and unique MMSI (Maritime Mobile Service Identity) number. This feature is not fully implemented in VMR and Coast Guard but will progressively be introduced over the coming years.

Navman 7200 VHF radio

We also have a 5w handheld VHF radio as a backup if we have any problems with our main radio. 

The big jump in communications has been the mobile phone. Both Telstra and Optus on their 850MHz and 900Mhz networks, now provide mobile coverage along most of the Queensland Coast. Even at Cape Capricorn in the Broadsound area, Chris had mobile reception when he brought Maripi back from Airlie Beach in December 2010.

To improve mobile reception, we have two phone cradles. One is for our Optus phone and the other for our Telstra phone.

Smooth Talker universal phone cradles

Most modern mobile phones no longer have provision for an external aerial. The phone cradles we use have an inductive aerial pickup which then connects to an external aerial. Maripi has two by 6dba aerials mounted on top of the radar dome to boost the range of the mobile signal.

2 x 6dba mobile phone aerials (plus TV aerial and radar below)

The other major jump in communication is the availability, through the mobile phone network, of email and internet connections. Our Android phones have the WiFi Hotspot feature. When made operational on the phone sitting in its cradle, we can connect the laptop and the tablet by WiFi to the internet. This makes communication so easy. The best feature is access immediately to BOM site weather forecasts which are critical in trip planning and keeping safe. Previously, HF and VHF weather broadcasts were available only at certain times and it was easy to miss the forecast.

The ASUS laptop is our main Internet and email connection point. 

Asus Laptop

We use the Acer Iconia  tablet for quick weather forecast updates and BOM radar (as well as an E-book reader, Sudoku and Angry Birds!). The tablet also runs the Navionics navigation program which we use for trip planning and a backup to the main GPS plotter on board.

Acer Iconia A500 tablet

With the phones in their cradles for better reception, we have a small Jabra Freeway Bluetooth speaker which can connect simultaneously to both phones. This works well for phone calls.

Jabra Freeway Bluetooth device

Even with all these high tech options we find actually talking to each other works best!!!