My favorite investment of the trip so far

It would be no surprise to anyone who has known me for more than an hour or two that my favorite addition to our convoy paraphernalia  has been a piece of telecommunications equipment.  But really, for safety and sanity, the UHF radio that we got for Pauline's van, (to link in with the one in the Troopy which has never been given a proper work out before ) has been a God-send.

We had looked at several hand held versions along the way to Adelaide, and considered outlaying the 3 to 4 hundred dollars that it would have cost for a decent set of hand held 'walkie talkie style' radios.  But despite the 'unusual' customer service I had received on the phone during my initial enquiry, I made the treck out to the specialty radio shop south of Adelaide, and found an extremely shy, but very kindly and helpful technician (not a retailer by nature). He explained that the ranges given on the boxes of the hand helds were a marketer's fantasy, and that we would have to hang out the window of the vehicle if we wanted to get more than 1 km range on them.

Having told me how ridiculously expensive an 'in car' system was going to be, he then proceeded to discount everything we needed until we had a system that was half the price of what we were originally looking at, with 5 times the range.

With Dario's workshop installation, we now have a link between our vehicles which gives us a safe overtaking system, long range map reading assistance, and a training platform for two young radio stars on UHF Chanel 29's "Stooopid Raaaaaadio". It's been lovely too, to get little snippets of help from unknown assistants who have happened to be on the same channel, heard Georgina and Pauline and I trying to find our way around unfamiliar towns, and have guided us helpfully to our destinations.  Just what you need when none of a girl's 4 mobile phone numbers are working!