On previous occasions here in our DX program, “Wavescan”, we have presented the story of four different American radio stations located in Australia; General MacArthur’s shortwave station installed on a train and a fixed station located at Hemmant in Queensland, the RCA lendlease transmitter at Shepparton in Victoria, and the AFRS usage of the ABC mediumwave station 4QR in Brisbane. On this occasion here in “Wavescan”, we continue in our series of American radio stations in Australia, and we feature the shortwave station located at Gnangara near Perth in Western Australia.Actually, Gnangara is an aboriginal place name, and it means: the place where yams grow. This is an outer suburban area, just fifteen miles north of Perth and just ten miles south east of Wanneroo, which was the original location for the now silent ABC shortwave stations VLW & VLX.
The Commonwealth Government procured 320 acres at Gnangara in 1952 for the purpose of establishing an international shortwave communication station. This large tract of land was then transferred to OTC, the Overseas Telecommunication Commission fourteen years later, and then it was that work commenced on establishing a shortwave communication station on behalf of NASA, the American space agency. Some electronic equipment installed at this new shortwave station was new, and some was transferred from redundant NASA facilities in South Australia, and at Carnarvon in Western Australia.
The Gnangara station was established primarily for electronic communication with Mauritius during the series of Apollo space flights and moon landings from 1967 to 1975. Mauritius was considered to be one of the likely splashdown areas for the return of some of the Apollo space flights. Three shortwave communication transmitters at 7½ kW were installed at Gnangara with rhombic antennas oriented towards Mauritius. Landline communication to Moree in New South Wales completed the Australian circuits in the Apollo space program.
Although the Gnangara radio station was primarily an American NASA project, yet it was staffed by Australian personnel. The NASA usage of Gnangara was terminated around the beginning of 1975 at the successful conclusion of the Apollo space flights, and the Australian shortwave communication services were transferred from Gnangara to the OTC facility VIP at Applecross. Thus, the Gnangara station was now inactive.
In the meantime, Radio Australia was looking for a suitable site for a new and supposedly temporary shortwave station to fill in for the Darwin station which was disabled by Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Day, 1974. In order to once again test the viability of an international shortwave station in Western Australia, OTC engineers turned their attention to the recently inactivated shortwave communication station at Gnangara. They modified two of the 7½ kW communication transmitters for the broadcast of radio programming and a two week series of test transmissions began on February 25, 1975. These test transmissions consisted of music and test announcements in English which had been recorded in the Melbourne studios of Radio Australia. In two sets of daily transmissions, these test broadcasts were beamed to South Africa, Indonesia, and England with the use of rhombic antennas. Monitoring reports indicated good signals in several countries of Asia, and beyond.
Although reluctant to do so at first, Radio Australia did issue many QSL cards to verify the reception of these test transmissions. The Indianapolis collection contains two of these regular Radio Australia QSL cards, endorsed with the transmitter location, “Perth”.
As a result of the successful series of test broadcasts from the NASA station at Gnangara, plans were implemented for the establishment of what was intended to be a temporary relay station for Radio Australia, at Carnarvon, on the continental west coast.
And that’s a story for another occasion. But what happened subsequently to the NASA shortwave station at Gnangara? Four years after the series of test broadcasts, a small group of international radio monitors representing the Australian Radio DX Club made a visit to the Gnangara radio station and they found it active as a communication facility, VIP, for shipping in nearby coastal waters, and for outback communication with isolated areas in Western Australia. Three years later again, electronic equipment from the Australian earth station at Carnarvon was installed at Gnangara, and four years later again, a cable service connecting Australia to Asia was opened.
For a short time in 1994, a mediumwave station operated by Australian Aborigines was installed at Gnangara; two years later, VIP Gnangara operated the coastal station VID in Darwin by remote control, and in 2001 the cable service with Asia was superseded by satellite communication, and in 2002 the Gnangara shipping station VIP was decommissioned.
Last month, during the month of July, Gnangara was in use for the reception of signals from a communication satellite launched from an ocean platform at the equator; and the transmitter tower for the ABC mediumwave station 6WF is located nearby. However, with the rezoning of the nearby areas for housing, it looks as though the end of the Gnangara radio station is coming soon. Nevertheless, Gnangara will always be remembered in the international radio world as an American NASA shortwave communication station that was in use for a two week period in 1975 as a test facility on behalf of Radio Australia.
(Source: Adrian Peterson)