Tuesday, 31 January 2017

Radio Australia shortwave station in Shepparton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIevO_JNoA4




Radio Australia 70 year anniversary - WIN news coverage May 2014   







Beaming Radio Australia around the world on shortwave

Updated 15 May 2014, 12:40 AEST
Inside the studios of Radio Australia, it's all hustle and bustle, but you'll need to travel 200 kilometers up the road to find the place where the international broadcaster's signal is beamed to the region. Radio Australia's transmission site is based in Shepparton, in central Victoria.  The site was first used for ABC broadcasts in 1944.
Chosen for its flat landscape and soil conductivity, the site is 600 acres, or 200 hectares, and is home to seven transmitters of 100 kilowatt capacity.
There are 13 antennas supported by masts 70 metres tall that beam Radio Australia's signal up to the ionosphere. The signal bounces off the ionosphere and is sent back to Earth in the direction of the receiving transmitter.
It's a precise art that's been mastered by the seven staff whose duties also include maintaining the facility and equipment.
Terry Fahey is the team leader at the Radio Australia transmission site and has had plenty of time to perfect his behind the scenes radio technical skills. After all, he's been sending our signal to you for 34 years.

Extract from 
1943 - ABC Radio Australia - Shepparton (Victoria)




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2014 - Google Streetview, main entrance




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2014 - satellite view of Station


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Radio Australia 1964 Tuning Signal

Click to hear the Radio Australia Tuning Signal and Opening Announcements, December 1964!

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2012 - entrance to the Station

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1945 - transmitter hall

Beginnings 

Soon after the onset of the European Conflict in 1939, discussions took place between the imperial leaders in London and the government leaders in Canada and Australia. These discussions focused on the setting up of large international shortwave stations for use as a possible backup for the BBC Empire Service in England. Work moved ahead in both countries, and two large shortwave bases were established; Sackville in Canada for Radio Canada International and Shepparton in Australia for "Australia Calling".


Site surveys for the Australian shortwave station were conducted in many areas of south eastern Australia, and finally the decision settled upon a grassland location of 200 hectares in the fertile fruit-growing Goulburn valley of central Victoria. This site, 6 km north of the town of Shepparton, on Verney Rd, Lemnos, was reasonably accessible to the three major cities, Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne, and it was suitable propagationally for a large shortwave station.

February 1943
The main transmitter hall was completed in February 1943, and even though it was designed to contain three transmitters, yet none could be found. Finally, an agreement was reached with the United States, and a 50 kW RCA transmitter, originally allocated to the "Voice of America", was diverted for installation at Shepparton.

The agreement between the American and Australian governments included a proviso that this lendlease transmitter should also carry a relay of programming from the "Voice of America". Thus it was, that the 90 minute daily program, the "Philippine Hour", was heard on relay from "Australia Calling" in Australia for a year or two.

 

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1961 - transmitter hall

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1959 - transmitter hall

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1973 - main transmitter room - 100 kW unit


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1962 - Control Panel for antenna switching and skewing

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1959 - antennas

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. 

March 2015As a result of massive  budget cuts across the ABC, all transmissions from Shepparton to Asia were cancelled. Broadcasts in English, Tok Pijsin and French continued only for the primary service area for the Pacific, from three transmitters. Transmissions in Chinese, Indonesian and Thai were cancelled. Services in Tok Pisin ware reduced. A 5-minute news broadcast in French continued on Mondays to Fridays, intended for New Caledonia, Vanuatu and other French speaking communities in the western Pacific.



 

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1959 - feeder lines

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1959 - antennas

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1962 - transmitter maintenance


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