A good AM/FM aerial for outback Australia

[Scubayorp]

Hi muddies,
In a month or two, I'm heading off-road into the Australian "outback" and wanting to have the best communications I can afford.
I've got my UHF and my mobile cell-phone repeater installed and would now like to have good access to AM/FM radio.
Can someone recommend either a booster for the standard suburban radio aerial (are they any good?) or a decent aerial to replace it?
It's going on my Landcruiser J100.
Thanks,
Rob

 

[dmjay]

How far are you going away from a city?
You will still get ABC on AM a fair way out but you can forget about FM.
If going really remote i would suggest a HF radio.
A second hand Barrett or Codan rig would be ideal.

 

[george_tlc]

West Oz outback as into the desert? If so, forget cell, uhf etc. HF (either ham or the old school HF stuff) will mostly work to get contact to someone. These days, plenty of sat based emergency stuff available and what I would bank on. I've used Spot in the US and in the oz bush and it works great for sending a position update whenever you want. There's other similar units out there. You can then also ping out a help request to mates/family or an emergency request if you really are in an emergency. For a few more $ you can send short text messages and receive them.

With Spot, I add a few mates/family and then send a position fix morning/lunch/dinner with either a "I'm moving on" or "I'm staying put". It pushes lat/long and a clickable map link to the mates/family to keep an eye on progress and if any help/emergency is sent out.

Soon enough your modern cell phone (latest models) will allow you to access the LEO starlink stuff to enable sms. There's some trials going on already and there's pay services that are available.

Lot's of modern options.

FM out bush, forget about it. AM (ABC etc as mentioned) or shortwave radio if you want to check on whether the world is still in one piece while walkabout.

cheers,
george.

 

[wapitimud]

I might expect you'd only need the AM BCB while stationary at camp. If so, you could affordably buy a long wire dipole, supported by three tall guyed painter poles. Coax going to a reciever, I have a cheap Chinese ATS-20 Si + radio.