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| Willis Island Australia (VK9WI) |
Willis Island lies in the Coral Sea
some 300 miles off the eastern coast of Queensland and out beyond the furthest
edges of the Great Barrier Reef. A
little cluster of small islands and cays stretches for 7½ miles running northwest-southeast,
and Willis Island is the third and last island to the south.
Willis Island is aligned in the same
northwest-southeast direction; it is an elliptical island around 1600 feet long
and 500 feet wide, with the highest prominence at an elevation of just 30
feet. There is very little growing on
the island, though it is described as a very noisy island with the cackles and
the calls of numerous birds, day and night.
The Booby Gannet can dive and catch and swallow flying fish, and the
Frigate Bird can squabble with the Booby Gannet, thus making it disgorge its
recently caught prey, which then becomes food for the aggressor.
This little island was discovered in
1853 by Captain Pearson aboard the ship “Cashmere”,
and it was named “Willis” in honor of the owner of the ship. Seven years later, the island was surveyed by
Captain H. M. Denham aboard the royal navy vessel HMS “Herald”, and in more
recent times it was absorbed into the Australian Coral Seas Island
Territory. Willis is Australia’s (and
the world’s) smallest inhabited island, and you could take a leisurely walk
around the entire island in 15 minutes.
During the year 1921, John King
Davis installed a small wireless station on Willis Island, together with
ancillary buildings and a residence for two personnel. This small habitation was established in order to furnish advance
weather information to mainland Australia, and the entire project was under the
auspices of the government Bureau of Meteorology. The term of duty back then for the two
officers on this lonely and isolated island was 6 months.
The new wireless equipment consisted
of a 1½ kW spark transmitter and a crystal
set receiver, together with a power generator and a wooden aerial mast. The transmitter operated on either 300 or 500
kHz for communication with the AWA maritime station VIC at Cooktown on the
Queensland coast. In those days, 500 kHz
was a main operating channel, simply because it was the natural resonant
frequency of an untuned antenna on an average sized ocean going vessel.
The official opening day for the new
wireless station with the irregular callsign CGI was November 7, 1921, and the
event was celebrated by raising the Australian flag on the radio mast.
In 1928, Eric Riethmuller built a
small shortwave transmitter at the York Street facility of AWA in Sydney, and
he took this equipment to Willis Island for use during his term of
service. Thus, voice communication in
addition to messages in Morse Code was enabled by the operators at station CGI
on Willis. This transmitter operated on
32 meters shortwave.
Three years later, AWA took over
station CGI and they incorporated it into their widespread Coastal Radio
Network which spanned the entire continent of Australia, and beyond throughout
the islands in the South Pacific. At
this stage, the callsign on Willis was regularized to VIQ, a callsign that was
held previously on Macquarie Island; and at the same time, AWA extended the
term of service to one year.
In 1934, Paddy Whelan began a year
long stint as the radio operator on Willis Island, together with
meteorologist R. MacKenzie. Whelan, whose home was apparently in country
Queensland, was already an amateur radio operator with the call VK4KR. He took his own amateur radio equipment to
the island, and also a bundle of gramophone records.
Soon after he arrived on the island,
Whelan began a series of radio broadcasts over his own small transmitter in
which he played records and made station announcements. These broadcasts were radiated with a power
of 10 watts on 1185 kHz under his home callsign VK4KR. In those days, it was not only legal for an
amateur radio operator to make out-of-hours program broadcasts on mediumwave,
but they were encouraged to do so.
A listener in New Zealand, the well
known Merv Branks at Winton in the South Island, heard one of these low power
radio broadcasts and he sent a reception report to the station. In due course, Branks received a QSL letter
of confirmation, perhaps the only QSL ever issued for these special program
broadcasts from lonely isolated Willis Island.
This unique QSL letter is held in the archives of the Hocken Library in
Dunedin in the South Island of New Zealand.
Beginning in 1933, the very new
passenger/cargo ship Malaita 2, began a regular periodic voyage from Sydney, up
to New Guinea and nearby islands, and then back again to Sydney, a six week
double journey. As the ship passed
Willis Island, sealed cans containing mail, newspapers and food packages, were
tossed into the ocean, and the resident operators on the island would go out in
a canoe to retrieve the floating tin cans.
It was subsequently estimated that
the islanders were able to retrieve about 50% of these highly prized deliveries
over the years. Even to this day,
envelopes rubber stamped with the ship name, Malaita, and Willis Island
delivery, are valuable collector’s
items. This delivery of mail by throwing
a sealed Tin Can into the ocean was in vogue in earlier years at three other
widely separated locations: Cape Race in Newfoundland, Cocos Island in the
Indian ocean, and Niu’afoou in the Tonga group in the South Pacific.
During World War 2, it was initially
thought that the staff on Willis Island could be in danger due to an attack
from an enemy submarine. However, it was
subsequently discovered that the Japanese had deciphered the coded weather
messages, and they used the information to their own advantage. Thus, Willis Island was safe.
The facilities on Willis Island were
completely rebuilt in the early 1950s; and then in 1957 Cyclone Clara severely
damaged the station with the onslaught of wind gusts rated at 125 mph.
While
repairing the damaged facilities in the aftermath of Clara, shortwave voice
equipment completely replaced the usage of Morse Code. Then eight years later again, the transmitter
equipment was changed to SSB single side band operation.
Some time during the year 2009, a
passing cruise ship was in radio communication with Willis Island, and the
radio operator on the island made a special radio broadcast to the ship, giving
the long and interesting history of the island.
This broadcast from the island was received aboard the ship, and the
programming was fed into the
ship’s public address system for.the benefit of all passengers.
Another cyclone, this time in 2011
and named Yasi, buffeted the island with wind gusts up to 115 mph and this time
the impact of wind and wave modified the shape of the island. It took nearly a year to bring all of the
island’s radio and weather equipment back to
parr.
Over the years, among all of the 250
people who have served on Willis Island, only four women have been granted this
opportunity, and these were:-
Denise
Allen 1983 & 1984, V. G. Woolley 1984 & 1985, C. Spry 1989 & 1990, E. Foley 1991, 1992 & 1994.
We might add that Denise Allen
subsequently joined an expedition to Antarctica in her role as a trained
meteorologist. It would be interesting
to learn as to whether E. Foley who served on Willis Island in the 1990s was in
some way related to Eileen Foley who was the manager and announcer for the
shipboard radio station VK9MI aboard the Kanimbla in the 1930s.
These days, the facilities on Willis Island
are quite uptodate and modern, with many of the same amenities you would find
in the homes on the Australian mainland.
You can take a picturesque two minute aerial tour of Willis Island on
Youtube by clicking on Willis Island Aerial View.
(AWR Wavescan/NWS 351)