Vehicle Updates

As the car and van get older and we get more experienced, we're starting to get things approximately how we want them.  Not that an extra $x00,000 would go astray, but that's unlikely to eventuate any time soon so we'll keep going along the 'slowly but surely' route.

Car Mods

Mobile communications are a bit hit and miss in the Outback (and from time to time, in the city too).  While there are lots of the country with absolutely zero mobile reception, there are also areas which are described as 'marginal'.  This equates to no reception if you're just standing outside with your phone in your hot sweaty hand.  However, if one has an external antenna for one's phone, the situation can turn from 'marginal' to 'marginally better'.

With this in mind, I found (finally!) a communications business that actually seemed to know what they were talking about. These people are few and far between and should be nurtured wherever possible!  He was about 15 minutes drive away, so I tootled over and had a chat.  He knew exactly what gear I had, and how to improve its reception.  I was under the impression that my mobile/cell phone (Samsung Nexus) was unable to take an external antenna, but he popped the back off it and showed me a 'test point' that also acted as an antenna socket.

I left him with renewed optimism about my ability to get a better mobile signal as well as a depleted credit card.

A bit of DIY installation later, and we now have 2 'broomstick' antennas on the bull bar.

The silver one is the UHF/CB two-way radio; the black one is the new mobile phone antenna.

We shall see if this operates as well as advertised.  For the techno-nerds out there, this antenna is rated at 6.5dBi on Telstra Next-G (850MHz) and 3dBi on Telstra 4G (1800MHz).  Considering that 4G is only in major city centres at the moment, I'm not too worried about that side of things.

Caravan Mods

A new combination caravan jack and jockey wheel was purchased for this trip.  The reason for this was two-fold.

First, and most important, was that when we had the blow-out on the caravan in Victoria earlier this year, I found that my 6 tonne bottle jack, while of sufficient capacity to jack up the van, wasn't up to the task of jacking it high enough without getting under the caravan.  Being under a 2 tonne van was not a good position to be in, so it took 90 minutes to change the tyre! 

The second factor was that the existing jockey wheel (for non-caravanners, that's the bit at the front that stops the van from falling on its nose when it's unhooked from the car) was made to the exact dimensions required to strip skin from your knuckles every time you raised or lowed the front of the van.  As this happens every time you hook or unhook the caravan, it became a bit tiresome after a while.

Enter the Trail-A-Mate that combines both jack and jockey wheel functions hydraulically and has seemingly no built-in knuckle-skinning potential. 

As it's a heavier piece of kit than the previous jockey wheel, I decided to store it in the 'Cruiser rather than add even more weight to the front of the van while we're travelling.

Partly loaded storage unit with water pipe custom jack/jockey wheel housing.

A trip down to Bunnings for inspiration and I returned with a 1m long, 150mm diameter piece of PVC water pipe that was then lovingly hand-crafted into a secure storage location for the new jack.  Note the impeccable workmanship that went into carving the slot for the wheel!  It's wonderful what a powered jigsaw and an angle grinder can do to 1/8" plastic.   The placement, access, etc seemed to work OK on its first operational use, but I'll see how it goes with daily use.