Joe Kerr

Indeed we did, BUT it took a heck of a fight, before they would even admit what had happened with their Meekatharra down link station power outage and lack of fuel etc. What i wonder is, how many thousands of users only tried once or twice and gave up trying if it wasn't urgent?... sure they would only have got charged $3 or $6 & probably paid it and never thought any more of it!. They refunded me the $2K, BUT if they made another $6K from other users who had no idea and all paid say $6each - then they still wound up in front, for the error!. I had to threaten them with the communications ombudsman etc, before they came clean about it all. Pretty typical of how big communications company's deny everything up front & demand payment UNLESS you have iron clad proof and threaten to go public etc.

It's a little different to that actually Grunf, - you see anyone you wish to call usually will be on the earth based land line phone system. So until such time as the satellite can hit a sat phone company earth based downlink station, which then connects you to a persons phone number on that land line system you can't call anyone. If the Sat company's earth based downlink station has no power (or backup generator power) then there's no way to get a connection FROM the satellite back to earth... to then connect to anyone on the land line system. Satellites only work for earth based communications IF you can both "up link" from your sat hand held unit to the Satellite & The Satellite can then also "down link" back to the earth based landline phone system!. One without the other makes the whole system redundant! So if you can't get a signal out to the Sat because your down in a ravine or a cave or have 3 tiered rain forest canopy above you obscuring your view of the sky and a line of sight connection to the Satellite, that's one way it can fail - but equally if the satellite can't connect to a earth based ground station to patch you into the land line phone system then equally you can't call anyone. If the other person your trying to reach however, also had a Sat Phone, which was also in line of sight to the Satellite then yes you could call them because the connection would be direct via the satellite for each phone - it cuts out the involvement of a ground receiving station and the earth based land line system. Hope that makes sense.

You might be better off with a satellite sleeve that turns your IPhone into a sat phone. http://www.thuraya.com/SatSleeve I had 2 satellite phones years back, Globalstar and I forget the other telco or something... They worked OK, but when you weren't using them, it was like $30 a month just to have the account... and when you did use them - it was like $3 bucks a minute whether the call was incoming or outgoing & that adds up bloody fast. So for e.g. if your traveling remote for any length of time, you have to pay your sat phone bill at the end of each month or they cut you off... but there's just one problem with that - when you go to their automated bill pay service via the satellite phone the "time delay" doesn't allow you to pay your bill by the Sat phone with your credit card because with the time delay bye the time the computer generated voice asks you to enter your account number or your credit card number or how much you want to pay etc the automated computer at their end thinks you didn't answer and starts with the whole menu options list again and you spend hours trying to pay the bill (at $3 a minute) - so you run up a $500 bill on the one call trying to pay last months bill, and it doesn't work then they cut you off for non payment etc etc! Another 'problem' is you can't 100% guarantee that the sat phone will always work!. You'd think you can but you can't. We were out at the Houtman Abrolhos Islands (54 Nmiles off Geraldton) one Easter for a couple weeks all up & had to try and make these calls & couldn't get a Satellite signal for the life of us... there was no obstructed view of the sky in all directions... no hills or trees out there to obscure your view of the sky at all so in theiry you should be able t ping a satellite any time night or day but not so... Over the 4 days we tried hundreds of times every day (because the matter was urgent) and couldn't raise a soul., When we got home we got a bill for like $2000+ for not actually being able to contact anyone at all... so it turns out the Satellite was getting our signal and racking up a $2 or $3 each time hundreds of times a day for the whole Easter period. BUT - the satellite was unable to connect to the ground station at Meekatharra or somewhere because there had been a thunderstorm and lightening had taken down the mains power connected to the ground receiving station. The ground receiving station had a automated backup generator system and diesel fuel tank, for just such a scenario BUT some enterprising local abbbadiginies had managed to find this diesel tank and drain it into jerry cans to fill their land cruisers for free and stolen the whole 2000 liters over a period of time and it wasn't till the power went down that anyone realized the tank was dry and there was no backup supply for the backup generator... So they did try to get emergency delivery of diesel to the ground station tank out of Meekatharra by their fuel delivery contractor over Easter but being Easter their fuel contractor said "sod off, it's Easter, I'll do it first thing Wednesday after Easter when I get back from my long weekend away fishing!". So while we had 2 Sat phones with us at the Islands we couldn't actually use either... for the whole 5 days of Easter, yet they stil expected me to pay the $2000 bill for connecting to the satellite - even tho the satellite couldn't connect me to anyone down here on earth. They got a rude shock when I told em to whack their sat phones where the sun don't shine... Its OK if your safe on an Island and you can wait - but maybe not so much if your floating around in a life raft at sea for 4 days with great while sharks (or crocks) wanting to use the raft as a teething ring - it would be preferable if the damn things worked like you think they should. So they can be good BUT they aren't all that they are sometimes cracked up to be, by people who've never actually had one or the mega bills that go with them! Just a heads up basically.

Always preferred a Folding Gerber Sportsman in a scabbard on my belt, RH said. Fixed blades were always kept in my butchering bag, along with knife steels, gambrel, clever and hack saw with meat bandsaw blade fitted. I liked the fact with a folding knife in a black scabbard on a black leather belt - it wasn't obvious. I could walk into banks and shops etc without people calling the police. No one knows if its a Leatherman tool or a folding knife etc - it's discrete, BUT it also doesn't get in the way getting into and out of cars or caught around seat belts etc. You hardly know you have it there. Been a fan of the Gerber folding sportsman 1 2 & 3 for maybe 40+ years now since the early 1970's when I bought my first one.

Thanks Dave - mucho appreciated!. I'm in Morley but the lock smiths down the road shut up shop / moved about 12 months ago - so not sure of it was him you got yours thru. Was thinking to go to the shot show at Claremont showgrounds on the weekend and have a look maybe to see whats available and what they sell for. Haven't had a great deal of success with Beatons in the past, so might try Claremont or Shooters Shed or go back to Gunmart maybe. I am a little bit old school with dealing with gun shops - i often go buy something small that I need & see how they treat me over small things, before i outlay larger sums for more expensive / big items.. I am often more interested in the service than the actual price. I badly needed a small part for one of my rifles recently to get a serviceability certificate so it could be co licensed to my eldest son. Almost every gun shop in Perth said to me "You can't get those parts any more, you should scrap the gun for parts(to us) for next to nothing, and BUY a new gun off us to replace it!" or words to that effect. Without the part they wouldn't issue a certificate of serviceability, so it couldn't be co licensed. I even wrote to Nioa trading the Aussie importing agents a couple times and they said same thing - "unavailable, buy a new gun off us/local dealer to replace it". Then I shot an email off to the US Agent.. and what a different story - nothing was too difficult... said he was going to Germany in a couple months to the manufacturers factory and knew exactly what part I needed and would search the factory spare parts bins for me... to see if he could find one. Then he forwarded my email to the president of the company in Germany who within 2 weeks not only found me a new old stock one, but had it posted out and at my door!. Wouldn't even let me pay for it until he was 100% satisfied I had received it & it was the right one - then he only charged me what they sld them for a decade ago the last time they sold one ($50 including international postage). Now that's service - something sadly our gun shops (and importers / agents) have forgotten the meaning of. the word! Gun repaired and certificate of serviceability all sorted - no thanks to the WA Gun shops I contacted all over Perth!. So those ones who couldn't be bothered with a small part? They are the ones I won't be buying the new guns / safes and ammo, reloading supplies etc from. I am old school - i test out service departments of new and used car yards with the odd small part etc to see how they treat their customers AFTER they have sold them a car and pocketed the profits, BEFORE I go looking for a new / replacement vehicle... when i find one with good service for the small stuff, I feel a lot safer making major purchases from them. The Yanks are a different culture to us downunder here - they demand good service and their gratuity's system of tips for good service ensures that most times you do get good service, but here - we just accept poor service... or vote with our feet & shop elsewhere. So that's one reason i was keen to hear who shooters had had good results with when they buy gear, i.e. word of mouth referrals. I've been to Shooters Shed once not so long back and they were great, so I'd happily go there again, likewise Gunmart / Graeme Harris guns in Midland. Beaton's I've driven for more than an hour to find they didn't have the part they told me they had in stock - then told me they couldn't get one & then I go get it in 2 weeks direct from the company president!. My nearest gun shop Alexander & sons gave me the run around getting a certificate of serviceability on another gun recently (again trying to "force" me to buy a new gun off them)... took it to Gunmart the same day and got a certificate of service-ability the same day! So I am finding out that gunsmiths my old man bought his first gun from more than 50 years ago who are local to me are a waste of my time and effort. I've no experience with Claremont guns.... so can't comment on them. It's tough finding a GOOD gun shop these days!. Things have changed for the worse unfortunately...... who goes and buys a new car coz you need a new headlight globe? Yet gun shops are playing this game around certificates of serviceability every day - few of them actually have a gunsmith on staff who can repair a gun even - all most of them can do is sell you something new!. And they are trying in many cases to use the new laws requiring certificates of serviceability to pressure people into buying new. I have become very skeptical of late, aboutgun shops and would prefer word of mouth referrals to rial and error driving all over Perth to get treated pretty shabbily in many cases. Often times by kids behind the counter who weren't even a shag in their dads bag when uI started shooting. Getting old seems to be just making me cranky.

I thus far have just 4 guns:- .22 CZ with scope .22H Anschutz with scope .243 Win with scope 12G Beretta S/S Probably add another scoped rifle around .223 Maybe add something scoped around .270 maybe If i won lotto, then a couple nice Beretta OU 12G skeet guns.... but not likely in this lifetime (Because my last big win on the US Lottoland Mega Millions was a whole $1.23c) So in reality 3 scoped and one shotty at the moment and maybe at some point 2 more... so a total of say 6... meaning I need a 9 gun safe? So do I go to gunsmiths in Perth to buy a safe or to locksmiths? Any particular place anyone can recommend that has a good selection/range & fair price? I am NOR but will travel..... used to buy at Gunmart up in Midland 30 odd years ago (Graham Harris Guns)... but not sure where to go these days?. Cheers

After a New Gun Safe, something like a Buffalo River - for Min 5 or 7 guns. Any suggestions where in WA I should go to buy one & roughly what to expect to pay for one? I definitely don't want one with the number key pad lock - i want one with 2 key holes - one each top and bottom of the door. I've Seen a heap of these on Gumtree in Malaga by some locksmith named Floyde, but they all have the keypad locks on them, which i was told definitely not to get (for reasons I won't type publicly here). Anything else I have to know about the WA rules / regs for gun safes before buying?. Separate internal locked compartment for bolt/s & magazine/s? & what about ammo storage? - can it be in a separate locked metal box in the bottom of the same gun safe, or must it be kept separate now? Things (laws) have probably changed a lot I am guessing since I bought my first 3 gun safe when the new gun safe rules first came out probably 20+ years back.. Want to get a couple more guns and the old safe will be too small. TIA for any advice.

A mate on a farm had a problem with this, someone helping themselves to his overhead diesel tank, at night when they weren't home. Finally in desperation - he drained the diesel into drums and put it in his shed - and filled the O/head diesel tank with water. Next night on the way home his neighbor up the road broken down on the side of the road - water in his fuel! ;o) He had to drive past his neighbors house on the road on the way to town, which was how the neighbor used to know when to go steal fuel when he wouldn't be home. Sometimes the simple solution works best. Big fire started the next summer on the neighbors place, during harvest, but my mate and his fire truck / light unit, weren't available at the time....to help out. Ya get that sometimes!. Cheers!

Mick, lets just agree to disagree on this one. I have a boat parked on its trailer, outside with Furuno GPS chartplotter, and chart chip. When i turn it on its hows the vessel location as in my yard. When I alter the datum on the plotter - the chart overlay shows the vessel a street away (up to 150 yards approx if you zoom in). Admittedly marine charts aren't great for such measurements in suburbia - however this one has the navigable waters of the swan river nearbye so is quite accurate when zoomed right in. There are not a great deal of changes between recent datums BUT some of the older ones AGD 84 for example to the new datums - can be up to 200 meters out in the position on ground. Sorry, we just don't agree is all, - no need to get into a argument about it, lets just agree to disagree. The question is about which one to buy after all - the thing about arguing with authorities - is another question entirely i.e a derail (albeit an interesting one) and perhaps the worthy subject of a new thread. No blood, no foul - play on. ;o) Cheers!

Just downloading the file from GC doesn't ensure its accurate in your GPS. You have to know what map (chart for marine) datum the game council overlay and map are produced in, and you have to have YOUR gps set to that same datum - otherwise as sated you can be anything up to a couple hundred meters out on the ground. You also can't assume that any ranger, policeman or GC official knows how to navigate, as far as getting his GPS settings right. Some of the younger tech savvy ones might while older guys unfamiliar with the technology might NOT be so well up on it. Depending on the authority - they might have their own individually owned GPS unit - and have it set right to the correct datum for that particular job and that map - while if its a larger authority where gear is kept in the safe and shared, the last guy who used it may have set it to a different datum for a different aged map, doing some forestry work etc, and the next guy never knew he had to alter the datum, when he downloaded the new maps for the current job. I.e. being a "qualified navigator" is not a prerequisite for a policeman or forester for example - most of them get pretty good at it, with experience...and because the technology is now a lot cheaper and more readily available a LOT of the younger guys fresh outta Uni etc will understand it who are exerts on GIS a lot better than some of the older guys (like me for eg) who did their studies back before the pocket calculator and digital watch were invented. In my case it was only doing Master 5 at a mature age that got me qualified in navigation - non of my work in Forestry or Wild Life Officer roles covered chart (& map) datums on GPS for example. Lastly if you've been around long enough (as I have), I have been out in the field (and at sea) on 2 occasions in the last 20 years where GPS failed me. Gulf War 1 with Stormin Norman I was at sea when the yanks attacked Iraq and messed with the domestic GPS signals... they did the same on 9/11/01, when the Twin Towers were hit - because I was at navigation school on the day after (our time) which was the afternoon of the attacks US time, AND I had my Garmin Etrek Summit hand held GPS with me.... and again the Yanks Military messed with the GPS data from the satellites and my GPS couldn't find the cheeks of its own but with both hands!. The electronic fluxgate compass told me north was south and vice versa for e.g - just as happened at sea back during Gulf War 1 - if I had listened to my GPS (and not my magnetic compass) I'd have sailed south to Antarctica instead of north to home port. You just can't always rely upon GPS to be 100% accurate - I know most folks do now days, what with car based gps nav units, but experience and qualifications will teach you otherwise eventually. The units themselves come with instructions that say - the GPS should ONLY EVER be used to conform what you already know, about your position - they are a back up and NOT TO BE USED AS YOUR PRIMARY SOURCE OF NAVIGATION INFORMATION. AT sea this gets kinda important especially at new moon nights and during fog events etc even more so if you don't have overlay radar. If you don't know what the navigational aid memoir "true virgins make dull companions" is all about, then you need to bone up on your navigation skills, if you want to be able to talk about, who's in the right and who's in the wrong, with the relevant authorities - I've met plenty foresters (and wildlife officers for that matter) who get bushed if you turn em around twice in the forest. You can't just accept that the authorities always get it right - most times they might, but you can't bank on it. The marine rescue guys (and Pilots of course) who have their Nav Quals are a lot more likely too get it right. Datums (chart & map) trips up a lot of otherwise intelligent and well meaning law enforcement types as well as fishers and hunters and other outdoors types who might not have qualifications & vast experience in navigation. How many can actually navigate manually without a GPS on a chart or map? When manually laying out a course - where do you measure your distance scale from, the top or side of the chart / map, or the scale printed on it, and why and can you trust an electronic copy's scale?) Cheers!

Good advice. the MAIN thing if your wanting to use a GPS to make sure your within a legal to hunt / fish area - is to ensure that the map or chart datum on your GPS is set to the same as the Map or Chart that the authorities have drawn and published their waypoints too. Actual on ground position can vary by up to 200 meters roughly just by altering map / chart datums. Then as long as your careful entering your way points data - and check the final look of it against the published maps / charts and positions you should be good to go. The caveat on that, for those of us who navigate vessels at sea for example - is that your chart / gps / chart plotter position etc is only ever your secondary not primary means of navigation, the technology confirms what you already know from manual plotting of courses on charts... Sometimes something as simple as a clock time error on a satellite can throw out the physical position on the ground by large margins... GPS isn't always perfect, its pretty bloody good but not failsafe. Cheers!

I find the garmin seem to have more intuitive menus.