Camping this long-weekend
Hi all,
Just to let you all know, I’ll be camping over the Easter long-weekend (Good Friday through to Easter Monday), on a private property outside Tenterfield, NSW.
There’s no internet link or mobile phone coverage here, so I won’t be online. If you happen to be around the Tenterfield area, you might get me on the 2m standard simplex frequency, 146.500MHz. (There aren’t any repeaters in the area at all, let alone IRLP/EchoLink connected ones.)
If you strike problems, best to contact me by email, and I’ll get back to you when I return on Monday. If release engineering put out another snapshot before Thursday evening (UTC+10) then I’ll try to get the boxes here building it whilst I’m away.
Both Loongson boxes will remain online, vapier has root access to both, so after getting approval from the senior MIPS devs, see him for actual access to the boxes in my absence.
Anyway… there will of course, be the obligatory posts with pics of the trip when I return. 
Happy Easter all.
April 17th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
It really is a good change of environment from server rooms to the open, wilderness or camp sites.
Some pre paid phones from certain companies can be bought for communication needs just in case of emergency.
I a red hat enthusiast/newbie.
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April 18th, 2008 at 11:38 am
I’m not sure what part of the world you live in… clearly it’s very different to this one.
Here in Australia, mobile phone coverage is concentrated in metropolitan areas and major centres. The route we take to Tenterfield brings us out of Brisbane via Ipswich, through Aratula, over Cunningham’s Gap, through Warwick, Stanthorpe and then we usually take the Stanthorpe-Amosfield road.
Mobile phone coverage is patchy outside Ipswich, although it usually isn’t bad there. It’s good around Cunningham’s gap. Between Warwick and Stanthorpe, it’s patchy… and it completely disappears shortly after leaving Stanthorpe.
This is a limitation of GSM technology… it would not matter how the service is paid for, whether it be on a contract (my phone is), prepaid, given away, or whatever … the mobile phone towers are too far apart to provide full coverage in these areas. If there’s no coverage in your area, you won’t get a service.
The amateur radio I have, by comparison, will work both with numerous repeaters in the area (I frequently listen to VK4RAI until I pass over Cunningham’s Gap), and will also work FM simplex — I normally listen on 146.500MHz and 439.000MHz. If I get a mobile HF rig, it’s possible for me to communicate great distances, reaching much of Queensland, and even internationally, almost regardless of my position — in an emergency, someone is bound to hear the transmission. This is on the TODO list.
While mobile coverage may improve, I’m not holding my breath. The frequencies mobile phones operate at, means the signal is much more likely to be affected by obstructions, than VHF radio. Amateur radio is also far less vulgar than UHF CB.
Thus, for an emergency contact medium, it does have significant advantages over other means of communication.