ABC heads back to Palau in more than five years

 

Under a new Memorandum of Understanding, ABC Radio Australia programs will be carried on the Republic of Palau’s national radio broadcaster, Eco Paradise FM (EPFM).

The signing was attended by Palau Minister of State, the Hon. Gustav Aitaro and the Australian Minister for International Development and the Pacific, the Hon. Pat Conroy.

ABC International Services Head Claire Gorman acknowledged the support of the Australian Embassy in Koror for brokering the agreement and said: “This new partnership is a first step towards the aim of establishing a full FM radio service in Palau, an ABC initiative funded under the Indo-Pacific Broadcasting Strategy.”

Gorman continued: “The ABC is proud to partner with EPFM and has a long history of engagement with Palau, including the provision of ABC Australia content on Palau National Communication Corporation’s (PNCC) television service.”

ABC Radio Australia has recently increased its Pacific-focused content and under the agreement, Palau residents will have access to programming including flagship regional current affairs show Pacific Beat as well as culture, education and music shows Stories from the Pacific, Pacific Playtime and Island Music.

ABC Radio Australia is available via EPFM on FM radio at 87.9FM and on EPFM Ngerel Belau AM Radio at 1584AM from Wednesday 28 July 2023.

Australian Shortwave Callsign VLR

Throughout the entire one and a quarter centuries of wireless and radio history, there have ever been only two stations that have been allotted the callsign VLR.  The first application of the call VLR was for the communication transmitter aboard a small passenger/cargo ship in the waters off New Zealand, and the second application of the callsign VLR was for the  the internationally well known low power shortwave service operated by the ABC and Radio Australia at Lyndhurst in Victoria.

The SS Marama was built at Greenock in Scotland and it was launched in 1907.  During its 30 years of international ocean going service, it was in use for the TransTasman route between New Zealand and Australia, and in the TransPacific service between New Zealand and North America.

The normal peacetime service of the SS Marama was interrupted for a period of four years during World War 1 while it was in use as New Zealand’s second Hospital Ship for soldiers wounded on service in Europe.  On one occasion, the Marama was accosted by a German submarine in the North Atlantic, but as a hospital ship it was permitted to move on unmolested.

The Marama was laid up at Evans Bay, Wellington in 1936, and next year it was sold to China, and then sold again, this time to Japan at a nice profit.  It was broken up at Osaka in Japan during the year 1938.

During the early 1920s, the callsign aboard the Marama was VLR, and this callsign was modified to ZLR on January 1, 1929 due to new international radio regulations.  During the 1930s, there were times when a daily newspaper was published aboard the Marama with news taken from various radio sources.  This daily newspaper was given the appropriate though rather unimaginative title, Daily News.

The original VLR shortwave station in Australia was born in a galvanized iron shed on top of a low rise near Lyndhurst some 25 miles southeast of Melbourne in Victoria, in 1928.  Back then, this locally made 600 watt transmitter was operated experimentally without callsign on 5800 kHz.  However, due to the fact that the audio source for this little new shortwave transmitter was taken from the two mediumwave stations in Melbourne, 3LO & 3AR, then the shortwave unit was soon afterwards given a sort of combined call 3LR.

Due to a change in international radio regulations, amateur stations in Australia were required to add the prefix VK to their callsigns, by December 31, 1928.  In order to ensure the change of callsign throughout Australia by the effective date, the Chief Radio Inspector Mr Jim Malone authorized the usage of the new VK prefix from December 8 onwards.  That was for all amateur radio stations.

However, mediumwave broadcasting stations in Australia never did use a prefix, just a single digit number identifying the state, followed by two letters identifying an individual station.  But, the radio relay station at Lyndhurst was an anomaly, it was neither an amateur station nor a mediumwave broadcasting station.  According to the QSL cards that were issued during that era, the accepted callsign for Lyndhurst shortwave was simply 3LR.   In this way, it was treated as a broadcasting station.

During the year 1934, a new building was constructed adjacent to the old original shack at Lyndhurst, and on  March 12, shortwave 3LR began a regular relay of programming for the benefit of people living in Australia’s isolated outback areas.  At this stage, the transmitter was still operating at just 600 watts and the usual channel was 9580 kHz.  The regular broadcast antenna was a horizontal half wave doublet at 95½ degrees from true north, with a radiation lobe towards the great outback.

Back during this era, the Lyndhurst transmitter with its programming relay from 3LO and 3AR was identified officially and unofficially as both 3LR and VK3LR.  In experimental usage though, the allotted callsign was VK3XX, with the X following the American pattern identifying an experimental station.  In May 1935, the 600 watt transmitter was engineered to operate then at 1 kW.

Around June 1936, transmitter (VK)3LR began to carry an experimental 10 minute bulletin of news twice weekly in French for the benefit of French islands in the South Pacific.  This genuine overseas foreign language service, though quite short in duration, was a forerunner to the inauguration of Australia Calling/Radio Australia three years later.  The French Consul-General in Sydney made request for the continuity of this French language service. 

In 1937, the Lyndhurst transmitter was completely reconditioned and the power rating was increased to 2 kW, though still with the same original transmitter.  Soon afterwards, the power level was again increased, this time to 5 kW.

At this stage, the lonely little shortwave transmitter at Lyndhurst now radiated through two antenna systems as needed; for national coverage through the same horizontal doublet, and for international coverage, a rhombic beamed on Daventry in England.  December 1 (1937) was the official date for the regularization of the callsign from (VK)3LR to the now more familiar VLR.
More about VLR next time.
(Jeff white, Adrian Peterson-AWR Wavescan 547)

International broadcasting: not so simple as ABC

a followup to Australian senate rejects bill to restore ABC shortwave, posted 27 August 2018

Australia’s international voice, once strong, influential and broadcast across much of the Asia-Pacific, has become little more than a croak into the ether.

Substantial cuts to funding, waning government commitment, changing national priorities, and digital disruption have resulted in Australia becoming something akin to a fringe broadcaster at a time when our region faces sweeping geopolitical, social, economic, and environmental challenges.

Despite punishing financial and staffing “efficiencies”, particularly since 2014, the national broadcaster still manages to transmit a 24/7 digital multi-platform international service (radio, television, and online) to the region. But the ABC’s role, impact, and commitment to international audiences has been diminishing for two decades now, and markedly so in recent years.

The model that has sustained almost 80 years of Australian international broadcasting is no longer up to the task, and its effectiveness – as prescribed by the ABC Charter – must now be seriously questioned. Our ability to project a vision of ourselves to the Asia-Pacific region has undeniably diminished with the decline of the ABC’s international service.

The Australian Government is currently in the midst of a Review of Australian Broadcasting Services in the Asia-Pacific which is assessing the reach and effectiveness of Australia’s media in the region. Some submissions to this review will argue for additional funds to be made available to the ABC as a means of rejuvenating and enlarging its now-modest international broadcasting effort.

Additional story at the interpreter: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/international-broadcasting-not-so-simple-abc 

ABC opposes bill to restore Pacific shortwave service

ABC QSL (Gayle Van Horn QSL Collection)

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has made a Senate submission opposing a bill which would force it to restore its shortwave services for the Northern Territory and the Pacific. The bill was introduced by South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon after the ABC switched off its shortwave transmitters in late January.

The ABC is opposed to the bill and said in its submission that its passing would impinge on its independence by directing the ABC to use broadcast technologies for diminishing audiences and at significant maintenance costs.

The ABC also said that in the bill there were factual errors and misconceptions, including the figures for the actual cost of the services. The bill said that the cost of the services was $US1.4 million but the ABC said if the Bill was enacted, the total transmission cost would be closer to $US3 million per annum, with the costs of $US 880,000 for the domestic services and $US2 million for the international services.

It also said while it had received numerous submissions from pressure groups, politicians and members of the public since switching off its shortwave service, it had only got complaints from 20 listeners. The ABC said it believed that the limited response from individual audience members in affected regions bears out the weight of evidence it used in making its decision to cease these services.
(RNZ/BDXC)

QOTW117 QSL of the Week: Letter verifying the reception of a silent radio station

ABC Radio Australia

On April 26, 1974, an international radio monitor in Melbourne Victoria tuned his radio receiver to the low band shortwave channel 2500 kHz.  At the time, two transmitters at 500 watts each located at the ABC-Radio Australia shortwave station at Lyndhurst were on the air with experimental transmissions on behalf of the nearby University of Melbourne.  However, there was no programming from these two transmitters, just an open carrier, and the actual usage and purpose for these unusual transmissions was never publicly revealed. 
Radio Australia and the ABC declined to verify these transmissions, and neither did the university.  However, finally a QSL letter was received from the Australian Post Office in Melbourne eight months later, confirming the reception of these two strange transmissions.
(AWR-Wavescan/NWS 402)