Phone reception hit and miss from time to time

[Bretrick]

I find it amazing when at times, whilst out in the bush I get sporadic phone reception while at the same time NASA can play with remote control cars on Mars.

[Graham]

Yes, but you are probably not on the same network as NASA.

[Fruitcake]

@Bretrick

I find it amazing when at times, whilst out in the bush I get sporadic phone reception while at the same time NASA can play with remote control cars on Mars.

Yet buses and trains still can’t run on time.

[Bruce]

@Bretrick

NASA can play with remote control cars on Mars.

Well sort of…

It takes up to 20 minutes for a radio signal to reach Mars so it is not so much a remote control as an instruction to tell the car how to behave under certain circumstances.

Personally I am often impressed by the distance the signal travels in the bush and I love the way the phone starts beeping with joy when you get near a town and all the texts and missed calls start streaming in.

Apparently in the UK they use a completely different system to us and if you are over a certain distance from a tower it will not allow you to connect to it (to stop congestion I think)

[LongDriver]

@Bretrick

whilst out in the bush I get sporadic phone reception

The variations in atmospheric pressure at your location can and will affect your signal strength, as will the Sun’s activity.

[Bruce]

One thing that doesn’t surprise me is that along the Hume and Federal Highways from Sydney to Canberra phone reception is continuous. We couldn’t have our pollies out of phone range.

This may be true on the Hume from Melbourne to Canberra but it is not something I have tested.