The SS Makura was launched in
Glasgow Scotland in 1908, and soon afterwards when Marconi wireless equipment
was installed it was granted the callsign MKU.
The Makura was the largest ship in the Union Steamship Company of New
Zealand, and when it was re-registered in New Zealand, the callsign was changed
to VLK.
The Makura achieved two claims to
fame: in 1910, a long distance game of chess was played by wireless with the
Australian SS Zealandia in opposite directions of the Pacific Ocean. Then in 1923, the Makura printed a regular
edition of an ocean newspaper under the title The Wireless News. After 2.3 million miles of voyaging, the
Makura was scrapped in Shanghai in 1937.
During the year 1924, a new low
powered wireless station was installed on the small Pacific island Niue
(NEW-AYE). Then three years later due to
an international re-shuffle of callsigns, radio stations in New Zealand and its
island dependencies lost the callsigns with a V prefix, and instead they were
granted callsigns with a Z prefix. Thus,
we would presume that the VLK callsign on Niue Island was modified to ZLK.
The next application of the callsign
VLK was indeed in Australia, for a new shortwave transmitter at the large AWA
radio station at Pennant Hills on the edge of suburban Sydney. This new VLK was a 10 kW unit that was
installed temporarily to give international coverage for a series of special
events in Sydney in 1928.
This VLK transmitter was
subsequently taken into regular communication service and it was on the air
under three different callsigns; VLZ to New Zealand, VLJ to Java in Indonesia,
and under its own licensed callsign as VLK to England. When Pennant Hills was taken over for the
international program service of Australia Calling in December 1939, the VLK
transmitter was on the air under a new callsign VLQ.
The fourth application of the
Australian callsign VLK was for a new shortwave transmitter in Port Moresby New
Guinea during their era before independence.
A new Australian made STC 10 kW transmitter, Model 4SU488, was
inaugurated on June 29, 1963 as VLK, and this callsign was in continuous usage
until a new callsign P2K was allocated at independence in 1975.
However, strange as it may seem, the
callsign VLK was also in use by Radio Australia for an overlapping period of
nearly five years. In 1971, three
shortwave transmitters at 250 kW in Darwin were phased into usage for coverage
into Asia, and the callsigns for these three units were VLK, VLL and VLM.
Thus the program service VLK was
applied to any of the three transmitters that were installed at the Cox
Peninsula shortwave station. However, at
the time there was no line feed from Melbourne to Darwin, and so it was
necessary for the VLK programming to be transmitted on shortwave from the ABC
Radio Australia stations located at Shepparton and Lyndhurst. At Lyndhurst, a 5 kW SSB, single sideband
transmitter and a 10 kW broadcast transmitter were used at varying times as a
VLK program relay to Darwin, as was also a 100 kW transmitter at
Shepparton.
The final leg of the more than 2,500
mile long microwave broadband line running from Mt Isa in Queensland up to Darwin in the Northern Territory was finally
completed in 1974, and so the shortwave feeder relays from Lyndhurst and Shepparton
were no longer necessary.
However, a few months later at Christmas time
(1974), Cyclone Tracy disabled the Darwin station and some of the VLK
programming was transferred back to Shepparton.
Ostensibly as a temporary fill in, a
new three transmitter shortwave station was installed in an empty American NASA
building near Carnarvon in Western Australia during the following year
1975. A 250 kW BBC transmitter Model
SK3F3 was inaugurated at Carnarvon on December 20 (1975) and this unit took
over much of the VLK program service.
There were a few subsequent
occasions when the service at Carnarvon was interrupted, and a 100 kW at
Shepparton took over the VLK service for a short time on a fill-in basis.
Then 9 years later (1984), a 300 kW
Thomson Model YRE2320 was inaugurated at Carnarvon and for the next 12 years,
this unit took over the VLK program service.
However, the entire Carnarvon station was closed 8 years later on July
31, 1996, and the 300 kW VLK was slated for transfer to Darwin where it would
be installed under the callsign VLT.
There was a delay in the installation of this unit at Cox Peninsula, and
eventually when it was installed, it was given an alternative callsign VLU.
The ABC in Port Moresby issued many
QSL cards verifying their
10 kW VLK transmissions, and these were the regular Australia map cards in
varying styles. It is known that Radio
Australia issued QSL cards verifying VLK transmissions in Carnarvon and
Shepparton, and perhaps also Darwin as well as Lyndhurst.