Thursday, January 17, 2013

Just 4 Kids Children Charity Relies on Satellite Phones in the Outback


“We travel extensively in remoteareas where it is no phoneservice. Satellite communicationis a life saver for us whensomething goes wrong”

Mark Louez, Motortrail Director




Just for Kids Inc. is a registered charity with focus on assisting disabled and disadvantaged children. With many different adventure trips to the outback in Australia they must rely on satellite communications. The worst nightmare for them is to be without communication in the middle of nowhere when a car breaks down.

Travel in remote areas
The organisation arrange several events to remote areas. “One fundraiser event to the geological center in Australia (Lamberts) saw us break two springs in our food wagon crossing from Cameron Corner to the Strzelecki Track, an extremely remote location in the middle of the desert, delaying our arrival at Arkaroola for the night.

Needing to feed 100 people a quick Iridium call to the chief at Arkaroola Village, some 400 km away in South Australia, we organized a meal for all of our personal that evening. We were also able to call our spring manufacturer in Queensland to make arrangements for a new set of springs to be sent to Alice Springs” said Motorail Director Mark Louez.

No mobile reception
Travelling in remote areas with a lot of people needs planning. Not just for food and accomodation but for any scenario that can go wrong. Reliable communication is essential to cover us for any emergency situation. With no mobile phone service and poor UHF and HF Radios during day periods satellite communications is the most reliable communication in the outback.

Car mounted PotsDock 9555
Just4kids Motortrails uses Beam’s PotsDock 9555 which is mounted in the car with a privacy handset. The Iridium 9555 handset fits securely in the docking station which also features phone charging, RJ11/Pots, GPS, tracking, bluetooth etc. The alert & tracking module can be configured to support periodic polling or emergency alert reporting.