Like the voracious, magical semi-human fish creature from Disney’s Ponyo, CalSol loves HAM. No I am not talking about the meat product from a pig’s leg, I am talking about Amateur Radio. For those unfamiliar with it , Amateur Radio, aka Ham radio, is the use of various forms of radio communications(voice, image, text and data) over a wide range of frequencies by licensed operators for recreational and educational purposes(Feel free to check out the wikipedia page on the subject for more info). To put it in perspective, Ham radio is similar to CB radio just like a smart phone is similar to the cell-phone brick you used to carry around in the 90s.
For reasons that I can’t comprehend, there isn’t cell phone coverage in Outback. So bereft of our faithful iPhones and Androids, CalSol decided to kick it old-school and got team members licensed allowing us to use amateur radio as the primary form of communication in the Outback. With 55W mobile rigs and no visual obstructions minus a very large rock in the middle of no where (Uluru), CalSol will be able to maintain a continuous line of communications between our scout cars, escort vehicles, and trailer. Ham radio has the added benefit of allowing CalSol to keep its race strategy communications off more popular forms of radio like Australian CB, where it can easily be listened in to.
For any fans of the team in Australia who see us driving by and want to say hello we will be keeping most of our communications to the 2m band. Also, during the race itself CalSol will have Australian CB radios and the frequency we are operating on will be displayed in the windows of our escort vehicles.
This is KG6YYF saying 73, over and out.
*Other titles considered for the post included “Sweet Delicious HAM”, “HAM: Its not just for dinner”, “HAM: Not the other white meat”, and finally “spHAM: Radio in a can”