I have a son going to Australia (for a semester at Macquarie University) next week and am still unsure if he will be able to use his 120v/60hz gadgets on 240v/50hz using the adapter he bought here. The adapter looks like it doesn't change the voltage just the blade configuration. What do the receptacles look like for Sydney? Where would he buy a transformer and adapter in Sydney? Thanx.

Ralph, Having done the same and similar journeys some times I would say yes in general but some equipment will need a stepdown transformer to use the Aussie juice. For example, most laptop computer power supplies - even those sold in the States - will happily run of 240V with a change of plug/through an adaptor. Some stuff - like the odd hairdrier will have a screwdriver operated switch to change the select voltage - we had one of these from Walmart. Other US stuff tends to be not so flexible - just check the voltage plate on it. For this he will need a step-down transformer that you can buy at Radioshack. Just check what wattage is required. He can fit an Aussie plug when he gets there.

That covers most of the kind of stuff a kid would carry in their suitcase for a year out. Frequency is only a problem for big white-goods which he wouldn't be taking and also remember that TV systems etc are different so there is no point taking even a small TV receiver/video if it isn't international (ie can take a PAL signal) and most US stuff is not.

For Australian socket configuration see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS_3112.

Hope this helps,

Hutch

A particular but at this age important issue will be the cell/mobile/hand phone. Here the US go a separate way which often requires a locally bought new phone.

Indeed, to reinforce Wolfgang's point, the US phone would need to be "tri-band" to pick up to Aussie frequencies and the cost of using that US phone for him in Oz would be very expensive - both to receive and send. Might be better for him to look for a cheap pay-as-you-go when he gets there.

It would need to be a GSM phone to begin with... I think analog cell phone ist still pretty common in the US whereas most other countries have shut it down in favor of 900/1800MHz GSM.

Check the actual nameplate of your American 120 Volt gadgets he brings with him.

Some SMPS cover the whole range e.g. 90 - 270 Volts 50/60 Hz.

If not you need a 240 - 120 stepdown transformer, if it is small chargers etc. probably 30 VA will do.

A lot of travel adaptors only change pin positions and don't change voltage.

Lay out of socket pins in Aussy and NZ

/ \
. I

The bottom symbole is a flat pin, I used the I symbol to visualise it.
Dot used for spacing.

Regards, Raymond

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/219/504175177_0ec4895b41_o.jpg

Above link should give you a photo of a NZ / Australian power socket for 230 - 240 volts

Thank you all for the info. The son brought the converter kit over yesterday and showed it to me. It does have the transformer with the European two round pins an inch apart. No earth ground and a selector switch for high/low watts. I don't see it working very well on a wall outlet because the two prong transformer plugs into the two prong Australia configuration / \ and the load gets plugged into that. At least he has something to hold him over until he gets something better.
Is this the only topic on the international front?
I haven't been to Germany, Austria, or England since '65. Has it changed much? I was only ten and the memories are fading. I just got a passport this month, maybe I'll head back.

Be wary that some so called voltage converters, particularly high wattage ones, use a triac to drop the voltage as per a light dimmer. These chop the incoming 240V waveform to produce 120V rms. However, the output is not a sine wave. Heating type appliances are fine with this, but something full of delicate electronics is best used with a transformer type adaptor.
In any case, step down transformers are very easy to get in Australia from places like Jaycar and Dick Smith which have stores all over the place.

There is a company all over Aussie called Jaycar Electronics, this would be the best place to go for electronic stuff, and they have people there that actually know what it is they are selling.
Avoid Tricky Dickies like the plague, you have been warned.

(Sorry, never saw Aussies post above)

From the Jaycar website as suggested by Trumpy, this is a 100 VA unit with a 240V lead and 110V socket.

I lived in a house that was wired for both 110 and 240 volts, on the western corner of the Simpson Desert. There was a double 110V outlet in each room and in the kitchen fed from a 2.5 Kw transformer mounted in the laundry above the door.

The outlets were made by Clipsal in the Prestige style (seperate switch mechanisms & outlets that clipped into the faceplate), the outlets have the part number UL415M on them.

And here's the website:

http://www.jaycar.com.au/

Re the GSM phone issue, are both 900 and 1800 used in Aussie, or just 900MHz?

"Tri-band" often confuses people, since it can mean different things in different places.

Tri-band phones sold in the U.K. are usually 900/1800 (the British/European bands) plus 1900 for the Americas.

Tri-band phones sold in the U.S. will normally be 850/1900 for North America plus 900 for Europe.

Triband phones are really only a partial solution to roaming. If you want decent coverage and access to a choice of networks you need to be able to access both 900Mhz and 1800Mhz GSM in Europe and 850Mhz and 1900Mhz in the US/Canada. So, quad band's the only way to go!

Ireland for example allocates a mixture of 900Mhz and 1800Mhz spectrum to each of the GSM providers. They tend to use 900Mhz for 'blanket coverage' and then supplement it with 1800Mhz cells in busier areas in city centres.

I know the UK originally allocated exclusively 900Mhz or 1800Mhz licences. So, the likes of Vodafone and O2 were on 900Mhz only as they were the oldest operators and then the newer players like T-Mobile and Orange would have had 1800Mhz allocations. I'm not sure if this is the case anymore, or if everyone's spread across both sets of frequencies now ?

Here's what my phone picks up:


3G:

UMTS 2100(Europe and Japan)
HSDPA 2100 (Europe and Japan) (next generation 3G

GSM 850 (North America)
GSM 900 (Europe)
GSM 1800 (Europe)
GSM 1900(North America)
GPRS and EDGE

The current deployment of 3G services in Europe and Japan is quite standardised as UMTS 2100, marketed as 3GSM which uses WCDMA with a 2110-2200Mhz downlink and a 1885-2025Mhz uplink.

The European 3GSM spec, has a full backwards compatibility with existing GSM services, so handsets will fall back onto 2G networks where 3G is unavailable.

Japanese handsets have similar backwards compatibility with older Japanese 2G networks.

UMTS/3GSM allows roaming between Europe and Japan for the first time too, but only using 3G services as there are no existing GSM networks in Japan.

As 3G handsets replace existing 2G models, EU networks will have the option of opening up 900Mhz and 1800Mhz UMTS services and reducing capacity on 2G GSM. The plan is that ultimately, 2G services can be phased out completely, although there's no clear time scale to when this will happen just yet. It's likely that some 2G spectrum will remain on air for quite a while to come.

However, the US allocations are really strange quite odd and incompatible and likely to cause issues for roaming, even nationally within the US.

Frequencies allocated in the US:
1710-1755Mhz + 2110-2155Mhz
Also, it's sharing space with GSM and CDMA in the 850Mhz and 1900Mhz slots with no defined uplink or downlink frequencies on some networks

The FCC's history with licensing mobile spectrum is pretty poor to be honest. They seem to have caused chaos during the initial digital rollouts for GSM/CDMA in the 90s and now seem to be doing the same with 3G services.

Telstra in Australia's also allocated 850Mhz UMTS. Again, I am not sure what the logic of this is..

It's a shame really, as cooperation between Europe and Japan has meant that all the countries using standard European style GSM (i.e. most of the planet) and Japan now have standardised network interfaces. While the US/Canada and a few other places are once again coming up with a strange tweaked version of the global standard.

There's no particular technical advantage to the European/Japanese solution but, it makes life a LOT easier for end users and handset manufacturers if things are kept standardised.

Only the two oldest U.K. networks -- Vodafone and O2 (originally BT Cellnet) -- use 900, but both now also supplement coverage with 1800.

T-Mobile (originally Mercury's One2One) and Orange were only ever licensed for 1800 and still have no 900 coverage whatsoever. The same goes for the new batch of networks which have started to appear in the last couple of years -- 1800 and 3G/2100 only.

Oh, and apparently O2 is now merging with the Spanish Telefonica. It's getting harder and harder to keep up!

O2 was acquired outright by Telefonica in 2006. They opted not to change O2 branding, but have actually expanded it by rebranding most of their other companies in Northern and Eastern Europe, including landline operations in some countries.

All they've done in recent months was rename Telefonica O2 Europe Plc as Telefonica Europe Plc, the consumer products will remain branded as O2. The company is a a wholly-owned subsidiary of Telefónica S.A (Spain).

They will bring the Telefonica identity to the fore a little more, it has been a footnote until this point.
The main reason for this is to show that you can internationally roam on Telefonica owned networks at lower prices.

In Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries, they've maintained their MoviStar branding for mobile operations and Telefonica for fixed line.

Telefonica's actually now the 3rd largest telco on the planet with revenues of about €56.4 billion (US$88.78 billion).