The children have grown and moved to cities across Australia, however they were all back for a family gathering recently.We had a great time; the only thing that caused problems was the mobile phone reception or more correctly the chronic lack of phone coverage.
Though since they all had different carriers I thought for sure someone should get a signal.
The first symptoms of phonitis appeared within 4 to 6 hours of arriving. "I’ll just pick up any messages from work", friends etc; then the cold sweat, and the realisation of no reception.
It was like a snowball affect, as soon as one discovered they could not use their phone you could see the panic in the eyes of the others. They all stampeded to their phone lifelines.
The youngest daughter discovered that if she squeezed herself under my desk and held the phone at a 45 degree angle pointing north she could get one bar of coverage. Just enough to receive SMS. The look of relief on her face was classic. So much so I could not resist and took a photo to record the event.
The others headed outside, showing great faith in their various phone companies. Then looks of horror on their faces when none received a signal.
One headed for higher ground where he eventually found reception over 1 km away at the left front gate post. If he stood on the post he could talk on his phone. Mind you it did drop out quite a bit.
The younger son who is not much on exercise decided that he would go up to the third floor of the house. This was not enough, so by trial and error he discovered that if he hung out of the east facing window on the third floor and held the phone in one hand and the TV aerial cable in the other he was intermittently in contact with the outside world.
The eldest girl showed great calm and headed for my computer. The facade of calm was shattered when she realised that it was dial-up and only marginally faster than snail mail.
When the neighbour's hazard reduction burn accidentally set fire to the telephone junction box and the landline went out, then smoke from the fires interfered with what little signal they had, it all became too much. They all headed into town for Maccas and 'real' phone coverage.
Graphic: Google Images
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