Lines of communication stall

He has a 30-foot tower on his workshop that boosts mobile service. It’s a makeshift system which he built himself.

Without this, his telephone wouldn't work. The work vehicles are also equipped with car kits.

Yet his mobile phone coverage at Wantabadgery - located 45 kilometres from Wagga - is patchy at best.

"If you look at the three-kilometre stretch of road at the front of here there has been 27 road accidents since 1982," he said.

For many the situation at Wantabadgery has been unknown but Mr Clough says residents have been lobbying for an improvement for more than ten years.

Now they are taking their concerns to the NSW Farmers annual conference in Sydney this month.

NSW Farmers Junee branch president Martin Honner of Marinna is aware of the situation.

He said farmers at Marrar and Wantabadgery were not able to operate their businesses effectively without adequate service.

Mr Honner said he is hoping to see awareness of the two areas increase at the upcoming conference which will take place in Sydney from Tuesday July 14 to Thursday July 16.

“The thing about us is we are all running businesses … can you imagine other businesses in Wagga trying to do without a telephone?” Mr Clough said.

“I have car kits in the ute, the truck and the tractor just so I can get some service somewhere,” he said.

The car kits certainly don’t guarantee service and Mr Clough said he had to drive to certain spots on the property to achieve one bar of coverage.

“We do have a landline, but without that we would be completely lost,” he said.

"If I need to do some marketing at harvest time or If I need to order spare parts in an emergency I can't do it," he said.

"In this day and age it is absolutely ridiculous."

And the difficulties don’t stop with mobile phone service. Mr Clough said accessing the internet was a tough task too.

Despite the advances in technology Mr Clough concedes that farmers would be lost without UHF radios.