In our program today, you will hear the second major feature item, in which we honor Radio Australia on the occasion of its 70th anniversary. Back at the time when Radio Australia was inaugurated, or Australia Calling as it was known at the time, there were just four low powered shortwave transmitters available and these were located at three widely separated stations. These facilities were:-VK2ME 2 @ 10 kW Pennant Hills near Sydney, New South Wales
VLR 1 @ 2 Lyndhurst, near Melbourne, Victoria
VLW 1 @ 2 Wanneroo, near Perth, Western Australia
Our earlier feature a few weeks back told the story of the Pennant Hills station that became VLQ and then VLI; our third feature next month will tell the story of VLW Australia Calling in Western Australia; and today’s program focuses on VLR in Lyndhurst, Victoria. The Lyndhurst facility began as a small locally made 600 watt experimental shortwave transmitter installed in a small galvanized iron shed out from Melbourne in an isolated farming community. This was back in the year 1928 and the station was established to ascertain the coverage area throughout Australia for an extended shortwave service.
A more substantial building was constructed on the same property to house the shortwave transmitter in 1935, and the power level was increased to 1 kW. Three years later again, the power was increased to 2 kW, and this was the unit that was taken into the international shortwave service of Australia Calling at the end of the year 1939.
During the era of its development, the Lyndhurst transmitter was on the air, at first without known callsign, in 1928. Then it became known as 3LR, and then VK3LR in 1931, and finally, the callsign was regularized as VLR in 1937. On occasions, an additional callsign was in use for experimental transmissions, VK3XX. The VK in the callsign of course identified the station as Australian; the number 3 identifies the state of Victoria; and the LR was taken from the two mediumwave stations in Melbourne from which its programming was relayed, 3LO & 3AR.
At the end of August 1939, all shortwave transmissions throughout Australia, amateur and professional, were ordered off the air, and the only transmitter that was permitted to remain on air was the low powered ABC-PMG unit, VLR.
It was on Wednesday December 20 in 1939, the birthday of the Prime Minister, Mr (later Sir) Robert Menzies, that Australia Calling was launched. The two shortwave transmitters powered at 10 kW in Pennant Hills opened the new shortwave service at 5:00 pm local time.
Transmitter VLR, with 2 kW on 9530 kHz came on the air at midnight with programming in English and Dutch for the Dutch East Indies, or Indonesia, as we know the area today. Then, at 9:30 am next day, the same 2 kW transmitter came on the air as VLR3 on a frequency of 11880 kHz with programming in English to Japan and the Philippines.
During the eighteen month era in which VLR was on the air with programming for Australia Calling, it would appear that the following channels were in use, at least some of the time :-
VLR 9580 kHz Dutch East Indies, Far East
VLR3 11880 North America & Mexico, South East Asia, Japan, Philippines
VLR4 15230 North America
On June 21, 1941, a new 10 kW transmitter was inaugurated at Lyndhurst, initially under the callsign VLR, but one month later the callsign was changed to VLG. This new unit took over the programming for Australia Calling and VLR was then in use solely for the Inland Service of the ABC.
In 1949, transmitter VLR was upgraded to 5 kW, and in 1956, it was withdrawn from service and discarded. However, it is true that Radio Australia was later on the air from several of the 10 kW transmitters that were subsequently installed at Lyndhurst, but by this time, on air callsigns were no longer in use.
Thus it was that the low powered 2 kW VLR was in service with Australia Calling, the fore-runner of Radio Australia, for a brief period of just eighteen months, running from December 21, 1939 to late June 1941.
It is true, QSL cards were printed and issued for the Overseas Service of the ABC during this time period and these were the now exotic Orange Kangaroo Card. Printed on the card is the callsign VLR 9580 kHz. Even though we have seen many of these cards endorsed for VLQ & VLG, yet, as far as we can remember, we have never seen one endorsed for VLR.
(NWS 40 via Adrian Peterson AWR)