HF radio questions what frequencies

Prospecting Australia

Help Support Prospecting Australia:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

shakergt

Moderating Team
Joined
Jun 25, 2017
Messages
2,203
Reaction score
5,819
Location
Esperance, WA
Any HF radio experts on here at all? I am needing some help determining some HF radio frequencies. Can anyone tell me what the following are

3764, 5093, 5925 and 7401

I belive the following are

10203 Austravel safety net

15972 HF Radio Club

4010 RFDS Meekatharra and Port Augusta
4030 RFDS Port Headland
5360 RFDS Canarvon
6880 RFDS Meekatharra

The next thing I want to know is it possible to take the crystals out of this radio ( Wormald RFK105 also can be a Perth Communications hf105) and put them into a Barret SB225.
 
Shakergt, we use to have a barrett hf radio with auto tune antenna. I am not sure of those frequencies but they are for different distances.

'You may notice that most of the 4WD networks use a channel close to 8000Khz (8 Mhz) as their main frequency and 5000Khz (5MHz) as their secondary frequency. There is a reason for this --- 8 Mhz is a "good all round" channel during daylight hours, it will work up to about 30 km via groundwave and from 400-1000km via skywave. As for 5Mhz, this tends to be used for shorter skywave distances (say 300-700 Km)-normally in the early morning or early evening. Note that you will normally have a " black hole" in the transmission range between 30km-200km. This hole is where the groundwave can't reach, and the skywave bounces straight over the top of you.

Most networks also have a 14Mhz channel--Normally pretty useless at night, will usually work well from 1500-3000Km skywave during the middle of the day.

This is as a guide only-There are a lot of variables when it comes to HF communications...I recommend that you do some of your own homework to fully understand HF radio systems.'

I pasted this info as may help others as well. We were members of VKS-737 and they had what is called sked times where bases around australia were on channel to listen and comunicate information including weather or messages from family.

We personally found that signal was always scratchy at best (7 years ago) but for emergency now and comunication there is much cheaper systems on market like spot. When was working remote outback my employer had device in vehicle that had various methods of sending signals like typing in message, one hit button for emergencies, ect and so much cheaper.
Sorry to ramble on but could also be info for others too.
 
I typed a whole host of stuff, decided it wasn't right to post, so deleted!!!
QSL!
 
Tg I now have a barret. I have to pick it up at the end of next month. It has some vks 737 channels on it so it looks like I will be joining also.
 
Sky wave.....where to start?!

HF works by bouncing a signal off the ionosphere.
The ionosphere is in layers, visualize glass sheets.
HF frequencies (military) work off ionosphere prediction charts, kind of like a tide chart. If your signal goes though a gap, it dosnt bounce back to the receiver, it gets trapped in the layers, and can bounce around for years, then find a gap and be received years later. It happens!

All HF transmissions work like this, which is why it has a huge range.

I don't know what those frequencies you posted are, sorry, but they must be reliable to not be changed regularly.

Just for your info, I once hooked my antenna up to a cattle fence near Singleton and got good reception in Perth.
Usually, the length of the antenna is determined by the frequency being used. HF radio is not simple to get the most out of it.
Morse code is still the most reliable method with HF, not say voice insnt good, it is, but Morse can get through nearly all the time, regardless of conditions.
I did a six week course on HF in the Army, and came out thinking I had scratched the surface of understanding it.
 
davent said:
Sky wave.....where to start?!

HF works by bouncing a signal off the ionosphere.
The ionosphere is in layers, visualize glass sheets.
HF frequencies (military) work off ionosphere prediction charts, kind of like a tide chart. If your signal goes though a gap, it dosnt bounce back to the receiver, it gets trapped in the layers, and can bounce around for years, then find a gap and be received years later. It happens!

All HF transmissions work like this, which is why it has a huge range.

I don't know what those frequencies you posted are, sorry, but they must be reliable to not be changed regularly.

Just for your info, I once hooked my antenna up to a cattle fence near Singleton and got good reception in Perth.
Usually, the length of the antenna is determined by the frequency being used. HF radio is not simple to get the most out of it.
Morse code is still the most reliable method with HF, not say voice insnt good, it is, but Morse can get through nearly all the time, regardless of conditions.
I did a six week course on HF in the Army, and came out thinking I had scratched the surface of understanding it.

so you have an understanding to what part the sun plays to hf transmission ?

never had the experience of receiving vintage skip :(

will carbon tax pay the bills filling in the gaps in the ionosphere :) :playful:
 
For interest, electric bug in adelaide are agents for barrett and codan. They also run an evening course to teach you basics to get you going and once you have been to one course you can go back later and join it again for free to grasp the use of HF. For us we found it more hassle than it was worth for the few months of the year that we used it. And when you take into account that you are not remote for many months continuously we could not see the value. When we compared the possibilities after forking out big bucks we ended up selling unit. And satellite phones are also very expensive compared to other options. Just our views.
 
I've been through all these scenario's thru the years, and even though I hold a full call Amateur radio licence, I dont now use HF for bush work. (I used to!)
However, look at every Police etc vehicle out bush, and they all have a Codan Auto tune whip on them..... as well as a sat phone dome...
I tried Spot, great for years.. let me down though when I rolled the vehicle.. Spot said it was my fault... Account cancelled..
Epirb, never tried one in the bush, but I would suggest remote small party travellers get one.
I use a sat phone.

Good info on HF radio is here...
https://www.exploroz.com/Vehicle/Accessories/HFRadio.aspx
 

Latest posts

Top