May 1 1944
This
new
lendlease transmitter from the
United States was installed at Shepparton and it was inaugurated, with
programming co-ordinated
in the ABC studios in Melbourne and
fed by landline to the shortwave transmitter at Shepparton, a distance
of 180 km.
Two
additional transmitters at 100 kW were manufactured
in Sydney as a joint effort between
AWA and STC and these were installed at Shepparton under the callsigns
VLA and VLB. A
total of 19 antennas were erected at
Shepparton, mostly curtains with passive reflectors.
August
15 1945
Transmitter VLA was inaugurated, and just four days later, VLB was inaugurated.
All three of these transmitters incorporated two channels
of programming access.
In
preparation for the 1956 Olympic Games in Melboune,
two new transmitters were installed
at Shepparton. Another American made RCA unit at 50 kW was designated as
VLD, and an Australian
made STC unit at 10 kW was
designated as VLY.Soon
afterwards, during a modernisation
program, one of the channels in each
of the three transmitters at Shepparton was split off and incorporated
into a new transmitter.
The newly derived transmitters were
activated with the callsigns VLC, VLE, and VLF. However, the callsigns
in use at Shepparton
became so complicated that they were
abandoned at the end of October 1961.
Australian Government's
Policy DecisionsIn the 1960s, the Australian Government made a major policy decision that it would progressively
abandon its services for areas outside of the Asia/Pacific region. This
was a consequence
of a decision that RA would provide a
ring of shortwave services into neighbouring countries, a policy which
survives to the
present.
For
many years, I provided part-time engineering support
and consultancy to Radio Australia,
when it was part of the Post Office, as well as preparing scripts and
tapes for the various
Communications programs, including
DXers Calling.
In those
years, I was privy
to many proposals and plans, which
at the time were classified confidential, and were neither divulged nor
released to the
outside world.
That
included Policy Papers concerning RA’s refusal
to permit any foreign broadcasting
service to use the Shepparton facilities, in the “national interest”
A
related policy concerned the Govt's decision not
to allow the construction of any
international broadcasting facility on Australian soil, except in very
special circumstances.
The
decision to allow HCJB to set up its station at
Kununurra, Western Australia, in
1975, came as a complete surprise to many of us in the industry, which
was a complete about-face of an established policy.
It
was well known that it took several years for approval to be
handed by the Govt to set up the new station.
The
establishment of RA’s new facility at the Cox Peninsula, near
Darwin in 1969 also came as a
surprise, as the policies of the time did not support the building of
such a facility so close
to our northern neighbours. There
was already a large military communications facility
at North West Cape, at Exmouth,
Western Australia, and concerns had been raised at the reasons for
setting up a RA station
so close to a facility which had
been believed to be a prime target for airborne terrorist attacks
Just
as surprisingly,
the Government’s decision to abandon
the Cox Peninsula station in 1996 came unexpectedly, which had been
triggered by
growing political unrest and turmoil
across Southern Asia.
Facilities in 2012There are
seven transmitters
of 100 kW carrying exclusively the
international programming of Radio Australia. There are 13 antennas,
supported by masts
70 metres tall. The site is owned
and operated by Broadcast Australia, employing seven full time staff.
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