Thread: celcall

Originally Posted by bblaze

Hows it work to make phone calls
whats the cost of calls
cheers
blaze

If you are talking UHF you cant make calls, you can just send a beep to someone to let them know you want to talk- i thinks it works like this if they are on a different channel than you are. Thats my understanding anyway.

He's probably talking HF /VKS737

more info needed ...

Originally Posted by bblaze

Hows it work to make phone calls
whats the cost of calls
cheers
blaze

Blaze

Are you talking about HF telephone interconnection? This is termed "telcall".

If you are talking about telcall, in very simple terms you use your HF set to beacon a telephone interconnection base station, the station if free of another call will allocate the frequency to your selcall and connects your transmissions to the phone system.

This is different to SelCall (selective calling) where you page a particular radio set or base station. Selcall and telcall are different functions installed within the radio set, but telcall requires the set to be able to do both telcall and selcall. Not all selcall capable sets are also capable of doing telcall. Codan NGT and 9323 sets are cabable of doing both functions.

One of the Telcall service providers is called "RadTel" and their standard rate plan is: Annual Service fee $120, call rate $0.99/min with no included calls.

There are other plans, for frequent users with a lower rate per minute and specified values of included fees.

Hope this helps.
Diana

thanks to all replies
Just trying to work out if I need/want hf and sat phone on my plan trip to have comms with home. Will be trvelling solo. epirb is a definent.
cheers
blaze

Blaze

If you have HF capability, then joining VKS737 is a must. The benefits of membership is two way communication over distance, contact with RFDS, NRMA, RACQ, AANT etc. They can pass on messages from/to family and friends and by using the regular radio schedules you can report your current location and next destination (with ETA) where if you don't arrive they have a general location of where to start looking. In an emergency other VKS737 members may only be a sandhill away.

It does not replace the final safety role of the EPIRB, so having both in a party is a good idea (some may say essential) .

C Ya
Diana

Diana,

you seem to have a handle on this...

do you know if the Q-Mac brand is able to be fitted with these options ?

I can't tell from the on-line brochures on the Q-Mac site but the product has some appeal on the basis of size & weight... but, maybe the maximum 50w power is a disadvantage??

any knowledge or info appreciated, thanks - Laurie

Originally Posted by 87County

Diana,

you seem to have a handle on this...

do you know if the Q-Mac brand is able to be fitted with these options ?

I can't tell from the on-line brochures on the Q-Mac site but the product has some appeal on the basis of size & weight... but, maybe the maximum 50w power is a disadvantage??

any knowledge or info appreciated, thanks - Laurie

Laurie

You flatter me but it's not completely deserved. I am competent with the use of my own Codan HF units (9323 & 8525a) and have some knowledge about the HF spectrum, however I am in no way an expert. There are others with significantly more expertise than me.

Yes the 50 watt PEP output is a significant downside of the Q mac. However 50 watts is a lot more than the old 25 Watt AWA, Treager sets and later Codan manpacs and it is in a much more compact design. Yes the advanced Q Mac sets can have the selcall and telcall options, however it seems this is something that you need to specify when purchasing the set and by my reading is not available on the standard HF 90 sets.

On the other hand, in an emergency situation 50 Watts has hundreds of Klms range using atmospheric skip and in that situation the ability to connect to the telephone is not essential.

Others will undoubtedly come in with better information.

Q Mac has a reputation of reliability comparable with Barrett and Codan
in the HF spectrum.

Cheers
Diana

Originally Posted by bblaze

Hows it work to make phone calls
whats the cost of calls
cheers
blaze

This celCall?

celCall MP2 - Mobile Phone Productivity