Emergancy Calls on Sat Phone in Aus'

as Dru says above, the best and safest bet is to get some "local" numbers before you travel, we always do it, we get the homestead numbers, local police and nursing posts.... we have had to call 000 here in QLD and it is a joke, we got put through to some stupid police number from 000 and they said "hang on mate, will look up Doomadgee, nup mate they have finished work, it says here it is not a 24 hour station, sorry but we cant help" .... yes we rang 000 and the answer was "sorry mate, cant help" ..... hung up and rung again and same answer, finally got put through to Mount Isa and they said they would call the local police ... 6 hours later they turned up, NO JOKE.
So bottom line if in QLD DONT bother with 000, it is run by a VERY corrupt govt and they dont give a shut....

And one other thing, pull it out and do a test call, you probally have some pin numbers, if so my bet is you dont know what they are .... yep i got caught with that....
Cheers
Joe

Joe,

I am sorry you had such a bad experience calling 000.

I work for the emergency services in NSW and have previously worked in the 'call centre' where 000 is answered for the Firies here in NSW.

I know for a fact that if you call 000 on a sat phone in Australia or PNG it gets put through to Sydney. They have to go somewhere and Sydney has the most operators. You need to bear that in mind when you make a call. Most of the operators have never been west of the Great Divide or north of Gosford so when you start talking about Mt Isa or Doomagee they have no idea. Having said that if you are a bit patient and understanding the operators will ask the right questions to get you some help. As for the time delay, once again you are in a remote area where all services are few and far between, You need to bear that in mind when you are planning yor trip.

I once took a call from a guy who said that he was coming into the city over the bridge and when he looked down to his left he could see a car alight. Remember I am in Sydney. The description he gave did not make sense so I asked a few questions and worked out that the iron bridge he was on was the Storey Bridge in Brisbane. I passed the call to Qld Fire and Rescue who responded the appropriate resource to the incident.

I have also taken a call from a guy who was heading south west out of town and could see bush alight. He was about an hour out of town. Again I am in Sydney and was thinking he was down near Golburn. No the town he was about an hour out of was Pt Headland. We worked it out and got people out to have a look but it took a bit of questioning to work out exactly where to send them.

000 works and it is the only emergency number supported by all emergency services across Australia. That is the one to promote.

Duncs

I recently posted here about our experience having to ring 000 on a sat phone. It was many calls to get help to arrive. I'm glad it wasn't life threatening. That said, it turned out ambulance are easier to reach than police, at least on that day.

Local numbers were best -- but then you are paying full price for the call. 000 you do not pay for. So if you have the patience and time to wait for 000 to fumble around, then dial 000.

My local numbers didn't help me on the day, because the local number was actually the policeman's mobile ... and I knew he was out of range because I'd seen him up at Marree earlier that day.

Hi Duncs,
I guess we all hope we would get you next time we ring 000 eh, what i found was that it was asked what we needed and bieng police it went streight to some "police" infomation service that QLD has, the people on the phone did not have a clue and it was a QLD specific thing, it seems that they thought they could employ any one off the street and whack em in the job in front of a computer and "search" did the rest, the first one had never heard of Mount Isa, and said he could not help me !!!
The 3rd actually put me in contact with Mount Isa and then they, of all people, said "sorry" that they are not 24h service in Doomadgee, yes Doomadgee is NOT as small as some may think, it has around 1200 people, 24h lit airstrip, 2 ambulances with full time ambos and large police station with a court house, and staff..... about 8 staff based on site with 2 4wd cars based here ... and there is no possible way that they can be contacted after 5 in the arvo or before 9 in the morning ..... WHAT A WASTE OF TAXPAYERS MONEY .... sorry but it happened to me, not some story that i am repeating but actual fact..
Joe

If you have a police emergency in Victoria, and call the local Police station, they will tell you to hang up and call back on 000 as they do not log or take emergency calls on a normal number. Also a lot of stations are now part time. VERY part time.

Joe,

Can I ask what your emergency was?

It also depends on which network you are using:

Ensure you know what to dial for emergency services from your satellite phone. Most are on Australian networks and 000 is the number to call. See more at ACMA.

Extract from ACMA: Satellite phones use different technology to mobile phones. All Australian satellite operators provide access to Triple Zero (000). However if your provider operates via another country, you will not be able to access Triple Zero (000). Check with your provider if you are unsure whether you can contact Triple Zero (000) from your satellite telephone service.

Hi Peter

I think that is a little harsh about the operator. Whilst we know where we are, we shouldn't expect an operator (who could be in a different state) to know every place in Australia.

Having been in an emergency situation in the outback, I found it is better to start by giving your location by starting with the big picture. For example, if ringing on a Sat phone, I would start by advising the operator that I am in Australia, then zooming into by giving them the state, then I would give then an approx distance and direction from a major town.

If I am on a 4WD track, then giving them the name of the track would be good. Also giving them the lat/long details will also help. I have found that giving UTM is not a good idea. They don't seem to understand it that well, & it is very easy to place you in the wrong zone, which would put your location a long way out.

Most people start the other way around, by giving the track they are on then zoom out to the big picture when they realise the operator is struggling to understand where they are.

BTW, I don't own a sat phone. I have an HF radio. When we broke down, I tried to phone by radio telephone, however the operator had no idea how to communicate via this modem, so hung up on me twice. I finally called VKS737 who knew the outback and they communicated by phone to let them know exactly where we were and also passed messages back & forth for us.

Finally, we haven't ventured into sat phones yet - it has always been a concern of mine of who I should ring in an emergency.

He did not know where "south west Western Australia" was Zebra400!

You might be surprised if you asked all the ExplorOz forum people where south west Western Australia is. There are no lines on a map to define this location,so it is really up to the person interpreting it as to where it is.

As an example is Ravensthorpe in the SW or is that considered to be in the south. I don't know the answer to that because I don't live in WA. But if I was told it was 435km south east of Perth, I would probably have a better idea where to look for it.

Laurie

Can you give more details on the new Spot Connect? a link would be good. I have a Spot 2 which works well.

It offers 41 character ONE WAY conversations in addition to the normal spot devices but test is sent from an android phone or Iphone using bluetooth.

It is an excellent device if you want to twitter, even if you have no phone coverage.

The world definitely needs that.

"I am twittering from Mitchell falls and there is no coverage"
"This device is so cool, I can twitter via satellite so you can tell what I am up to"
"Here I am in the middle of nowhere, life is good. Loving it"
Gawd

Actually now that I re-read the above given the 41 character limit they would read

"I'm twxg fm MFLZ & thr is no cvg"
"Ths dev is cl, I cn twx vis sat u cn tl wht i/m u2"
"Hr i m n mid of nowhr. luvn it."

Can't wait.

I am sure it could be put to better use, but the more you think about it the more the limitations become obvious. For little extra monthly cost ( or even less) you can get a sat phone for 2 way comms and get feedback if someone is coming and if so when.

Better than nothing I suppose.

Oops should say

It offers 41 character ONE WAY conversations in addition to the normal spot devices but text is sent from an android phone or Iphone using bluetooth.
...

Some time ago a group of us were shown through a Satphone provider and they can tell where your phone call originated from.
You would think that if the emergency service would check with them if they wanted to know where you are.

Honky

Just make sure you get one that works on Iridium.