Hey guys. It's Jase here.
Welcome to another episode of ‘Ask Jase’.
Now we're gonna get straight into it, so let's have a look here.
I have got a laptop full of questions.
Now Jacob, Jacob S, if you're watching, G'day, Jacob.
Thanks for your question, mate.
Jacob's question is ‘what spare parts and equipment would you take for a trip around
Australia including going to the Cape on the Old Telegraph Track.’
We love the Telegraph Track, don't we?
Okay if you're going to go hardcore on the Tele track, you're going to need heaps of
spares depending on your truck.
But important things to take, you're towing a trailer, take some bearings.
I find taking a battery drill and a battery grinder.
Need some drill bits.
Need some tech screws, you know, some self-tapping screws, some pop rivets.
So if you need to do a few repairs like that, that's a good one.
Bag of bolts, so just a big bag of licorice allsorts when it comes to nuts and bolts.
Put some nyloc nuts in there, mate, so they don't come undone again.
You need filters.
If you've got any Toyota, or a new Toyota, you going to need to replace the fuel filter.
That's a must.
Replace that fuel filter.
Soon as that light comes on, get out there and replace it.
So yeah, look, spare parts, tools, spanners, you know, bits and pieces.
Trailer bearings, yeah, things like that.
Hopefully that answers your question, Jacob.
All right here we go, we've got another one here.
So this is from Jake M. Good onya, Jake, if you're watching.
‘Love the show.
In all your years traveling out in the bush, have you ever seen or experienced anything
freaky, like big wildcats, UFOs, or even Yowies?’
That's a cool question, that one.
Okay so, the closest thing I got to a UFO was I was up at the Mitchell Plateau.
So if you know that, that's in the Kimberley.
And we were parked up, we actually parked up on the old airstrip, right?
And we're sitting there around the campfire in our camp chairs, and I kid you not, this
big white light from the heavens came flying across the sky, lit the whole joint up, and
and then fizzled out.
And I just went wow.
I made a wish, mind you.
So I think it was a meteorite or something like that.
All I know it was very, very cool.
Unidentified flying object?
Quite possibly. There you go.
Now big cats?
Alright so I wouldn't say I've seen a lion or a you know like a big cat, but I tell you,
up in the Gulf country of Queensland, Northern Territory/Queensland border.
Mate, there are some serious feral cats up there, and I have seen some cats up there
that looked like little bobcats.
And I don't I mean they skid steer loader.
I'm talking about a serious cat that looks like it would eat the neighbor's dog.
And so yes, there are cats everywhere.
And then there's one more little story, and you're going to love this one.
I was up at a place called Battle Camp, and that's up in the Cape, okay?
And they call it Battle Camp, and there's actually an old set of ruins there.
And we were camped there one night, and it was Simon who mentioned to me, he goes, ‘Oh
there's some wild dogs around here.’
And I went, ‘oh okay,’ you know.
Wild dogs. I'm sure they're everywhere.
Dingoes, maybe, wild dogs.
And he told me a bit of a story about some dirt bike trip he was on, and they all huddled
inside the hut.
And one guy was outside, and he ran inside halfway through the night apparently, because
of the wild dogs.
Well I sort of listened to that story, and then we went to bed.
I rolled my swag out beside the the vehicle there, and it would have been about, I reckon
about 3 o'clock in the morning, I'm in my swag and I hear this growling.
And I reckon the dog was sitting right beside my swag, and he was growling at me as if to
say, ‘grrr... what are you doing, mate?
What are you doing in my spot?’
And I'm like, I got a bit of a shiver up my spine.
I went oh whoa!
And then it took off, and then a few seconds later he'd run past again.
It was like he was running past my tent.
You could hear him gallop past, and then ‘grrr’ growl at me and then run past.
And I'm thinking, okay what's going on here?
And I thought, I was sort of thinking maybe they'll have a go at me.
You know, they might think I'm a bit of tasty meat.
So I'm sitting inside my swag, and I unzip my swag slightly.
So I unzip it so I could get out of it really quickly.
And then I hear him gallop past, and then I just launched out of the swag.
And I've just come out into the darkness.
I couldn't see much because it was a very dark night.
I had pants on, by the way.
And I've just gone ‘raawr’ like that.
And just outside of that visual range, cuz they've got better eyes than I've got, you
could see them.
And they would have been a pack of dogs, and they were sitting there growling at me.
And I've just grabbed a couple of big sticks, and I'm throwing sticks at them and growled
at them just to let them know that I'm the alpha male around here.
And yeah, went back to bed, but that would put some chills up your spine, that does.
You know, because you've got to watch them feral dogs.
They'll take down kangaroos and calves and stuff like that and small children.
So remember that one if you're at Battle Camp, lock your kids up.
All right? You don't want them getting taken by any feral dogs.
So there you go.
I'm just having a look here, Jake M. Good question, mate, good, good question.
I hope that was a great answer for you.
All right, Adam C. Adam C., how you goin', mate, if you're watching.
‘What CB antenna...’
I'm assuming CB/UHF... ‘do you guys run?
The one I'm using using hardly picks up anything.’
Oh you gotta love the UHF, mate.
It's UHF: ultra high-frequency, okay?
So, um, basically the UHF radio or CB radio is used to communicate a short distance, because
they're not designed for long distance.
A HF is designed for long distance.
Unless of course you're using repeaters.
Well I'm not dialing into repeaters when I'm up there.
I wouldn't even know where they are, okay?
So generally people are buying the UHF, installing it onto their vehicle, their four-wheel-drive,
so that they can communicate between vehicles.
That's usually a good one.
You're not using it for any emergency or anything like that.
You couldn't try, but generally it's not going to get you the range.
Now what do we use?
Well I've actually got one right here, as a sample.
And I'll show you.
This is a new one here.
Now this is the aerial that I use.
It's about... I think that's about 1.2 meters roughly, mounted directly to the front on the bull bar.
It's got this massive big spring going on here.
You can see this big spring, so can take a bit of a flex, a bit of a bash from the tree.
So we've got a low gain and a high gain antenna, okay?
This one is a medium gain.
So you start off with a low gain--2 to 4 DBI.
That is the signal strength, and it is low gain which is perfect for hilly country.
So if you're in the hills, and you're going up and down like that, so you can't see the
vehicle in front of you, you want a low gain antenna.
All right?
Now if you're in flat country all the time, so you're up in the Gulf country, and it's
just flat everywhere up there.
Hardly any hills.
You use a high gain antenna, and that'll be 8+, so 8 DBI+.
All right, and that gives you good distance over flat ground.
Now when we travel around Australia--the top end of Australia you know down in the bottom
of Western Australia, crossed through Victoria, all those places--then you're gonna need a
medium-range antenna, because you don't know whether you going to be in hilly country or
flat country.
So use a medium-gain antenna.
What is that?
Well that is from about 5-7 DBI, okay?
This one is a 6.6.
So it comes in the medium range.
Its length... it's not overly long, so it doesn't get caught up on the trees and stuff.
And it's not a little short stumpy one.
So remember that one. Medium range.
I don't know what antenna you've got, mate, but depending on what country you're doing,
what you're doing, I go for a medium range.
The best way to go.
Heavy-duty spring, so you can handle those corrugations on the front of your bull bar
and all that sort of stuff.
So there you go.
See how that goes, Adam.
Okay, all right, so we've got one more question here.
And it's from Jordan B. G'day Jordan, if you're watching.
‘Hey Jase, love the show and am a massive fan.’
Okay, thanks Jordan.
‘I was just wondering how long you spend on the road filming each series.’
Okay I get asked this question a lot.
So I'm going to answer this question for you.
Hopefully I could do a good job of this.
Right All 4 Adventure is filmed a 10-part series.
Now we go away for 9 to 10 weeks, and we go up into, you know, the location that we're going to.
Like the last one we went to all over the territory.
Every episode rolls into the next.
What we try and do is show you the journey.
Sometimes a lot of it is the magic of television, so we could be in that bog for three hours,
and your watch it takes, what, three minutes on television.
But with Unleashed, Unleashed is different.
We split it up into two lots.
We do the first half of Unleashed--four episodes--then we do the second half.
And the reason for Unleashed is so that I can get different terrain, and also give you
different seasons.
Because the top end of Australia is different in the wet season as opposed the dry season.
So I really like to sort of change it up a bit, because ol' Swampy, as you know, on Unleased
it likes swamp.
And we go up in the dry season, it doesn't get to see much swamp.
So he wants to go up there in the wet season, all right?
So Unleashed, four episodes, and that could take us anywhere between--if you count 4-5
days per episode--that takes you right through to 2 nearly 3 weeks depending on the driving.
Okay, so there's a lot of driving involved, I know that much.
And towing.
So hopefully that answers your question, Jordan B, and mate keep sending in.
So everybody out there, keep sending in your questions, and I'll see if I can shoot you
some answers.
And don't be afraid to send in the technical ones because I will give you the information
or the knowledge that I've sort of picked up in the last God knows how old am I?
Yeah we won't tell you that.
...In the last God knows 30 years of experience on the road of being out there in
the bush and doing what I love and doing what you guys love to watch.
Okay so we'll see you next time on ‘Ask Jase’.