You quote: "I tried ringing Trev a while ago but he's in YBDV." My rather ancient Telstra mobile phone worked perfectly when I was at Birdsville about a year ago.
Sorry for the non-sequitur here...
It's been my experience that the operability, reliability and effective range of cellphones is generally inversely proportional to their age
Perhaps Trev has the latest model?!
FP.