Minlak
custom titis
I have been tasked with finding suitable communication between marshals for our club race days and general use.
The area we operate in is State Forest and to quote the QLD Govt "With rugged hills of open eucalypt woodland, this park is an adventurer’s retreat. You can spotlight for possums and gliders at night and go mountain biking or bird watching during the day." Throw in the mix of ironbark and usual scrub trees and the fact the area we operate in is more hills than open woodland we are faced with some communication problems. Mobile phones are not reliable in this location and the spot I was marshal had no communication at all. This is not the situation we want to protect our riders.
For the last event we used handheld UHF's that were of a low power and had practically no coverage between marshals. My research and previous knowledge suggests we should go to 5w Handheld units but range is still a line of sight issue. The bandwidth will not go through hills it will go around or over and then it still has leaves, trees and sap to contend with all great range reducing materials.
The one thing we don't want to do is buy 5w Units and find they are no better. These units are going to cost us around the $200 mark each so that will be maybe $1000 wasted if we don't have success.
I have not done my pricing research yet as first I need to know what to buy before I can price it.
How you can help
Does anyone have a better idea than UHF?
Has anyone used 5w UHF in this type of terrain?
What are other clubs using on races?
General information on what you think I should consider?
I am aware of some mobile phone apps that are meant to turn your mobile handset into a "Walkie Talkie" most handsets have a maximum 2w output and usually less so I can't see this addressing the range issues we have.
There also appears to be no repeaters for the UHF in this region that we could reliably hit if we can't even hit the next handset 1KM away in the forest.
The area we operate in is State Forest and to quote the QLD Govt "With rugged hills of open eucalypt woodland, this park is an adventurer’s retreat. You can spotlight for possums and gliders at night and go mountain biking or bird watching during the day." Throw in the mix of ironbark and usual scrub trees and the fact the area we operate in is more hills than open woodland we are faced with some communication problems. Mobile phones are not reliable in this location and the spot I was marshal had no communication at all. This is not the situation we want to protect our riders.
For the last event we used handheld UHF's that were of a low power and had practically no coverage between marshals. My research and previous knowledge suggests we should go to 5w Handheld units but range is still a line of sight issue. The bandwidth will not go through hills it will go around or over and then it still has leaves, trees and sap to contend with all great range reducing materials.
The one thing we don't want to do is buy 5w Units and find they are no better. These units are going to cost us around the $200 mark each so that will be maybe $1000 wasted if we don't have success.
I have not done my pricing research yet as first I need to know what to buy before I can price it.
How you can help
Does anyone have a better idea than UHF?
Has anyone used 5w UHF in this type of terrain?
What are other clubs using on races?
General information on what you think I should consider?
I am aware of some mobile phone apps that are meant to turn your mobile handset into a "Walkie Talkie" most handsets have a maximum 2w output and usually less so I can't see this addressing the range issues we have.
There also appears to be no repeaters for the UHF in this region that we could reliably hit if we can't even hit the next handset 1KM away in the forest.