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"Wavescan" is a weekly program for long distance radio hobbyists produced by Dr. Adrian M. Peterson, Coordinator of International Relations for Adventist World Radio. AWR carries the program over many of its stations (including shortwave). Adrian Peterson is a highly regarded DXer and radio historian, and often includes features on radio history in his program. We are reproducing those features below, with Dr. Peterson's permission and assistance.

Wavescan N588, May 31, 2020

The Radio Scene and the Overloaded Telephone Exchange

The oldest mediumwave radio broadcasting station in Australia is the almost one hundred year old ABC regional station 2BL Sydney with its 50 kW transmitter on 702 kHz at the outer suburban location of Liverpool. In anticipation of the inauguration of the new radio broadcasting station in Sydney, test broadcasts began in October back in the year 1923 from a 10 watt amateur station 2HP at suburban Neutral Bay.

This low powered amateur transmitter was then installed on the top of the Smith's Weekly/Guardian Newspaper Building in Philip Street, Sydney, where additional test broadcasts began on October 19 (1923). These test broadcasts were heard by avid listeners all over eastern Australia, right up in North Queensland and right down in the island of Tasmania. During the first three days of these test broadcasts, all seven of the newspaper's telephone lines were jammed continually with calls from appreciative listeners.

Down in Melbourne is the popular commercial station 3AW, which traces its earliest origins back to the year 1932. On February 22, that station was inaugurated with 300 watts on 1425 kHz, a split frequency during the era when it was more important to measure a station's position on the radio dial in metres rather than in kilocycles. The letters AW in the callsign were derived from three or four different sources that were associated with the ownership of the station; Allans Music Store, Williamson Theatre, Argus newspaper, and even perhaps AWA radio manufactory.

During the 1930s, radio station 3AW utilized a low power shortwave transmitter in the range of 5 metres for outside broadcasts. These days radio station 3AW operates with 5 kW on 693 kHz.

Two years after station 3AW was inaugurated, they conducted a radio competition (1934) which required a telephone response. For several days, their telephone lines were bogged down with 3,000 phone calls that were cued up at the PMG manual exchange at the GPO in Melbourne city.

The English word orange is applied to a sweet juicy fruit that is grown widely around the world. This same word also identifies a color, the same color as the skin of the orange fruit. In addition, the word Orange is also the name of a regional city in the Australian state of New South Wales. This regional city was named in honor of Prince William of Orange, who subsequently became King William II of the Netherlands.

On October 31, 1935, a new commercial radio broadcasting station in Orange was officially inaugurated by the Post Master General, the Honorable Alexander MacLachlan. The Orange station was 2GZ, which had been projected initially under the callsign 2GX.

At the time, Alexander MacLachlan was in the town of Sale in Victoria, where he was participating in the opening ceremonies of another new radio station, a new government ABC station 3GI. He participated in the opening of commercial 2GZ by landline, a distance of some 500 miles.

During the following year (1936), station 2GZ with its 2 kW on 990 kHz announced that listeners could phone in for a free copy of their 2GZ Magazine, which presented the story of how a radio station operates. So many listeners phoned in that their telephone system was jammed for several weeks.

Mediumwave station 2GZ is no longer on the air. In 1996 they transferred to the FM Band 2, and their mediumwave frequency was taken over by station 2EL, which operates as a relay station for 2SM in Sydney.

Radio station 2MO in Gunnedah began as an amateur radio broadcasting station way back in the year 1923. During the 1930s, this station developed a very popular program under the title, Songs of the Prairie; in fact, this program was so popular that it was distributed throughout Australia via the telephone system so that other radio stations could also broadcast it to their own audiences. In fact, it was noted that the telephone girls at the manual telephone exchanges throughout Australia would also listen to this radio program while on duty at their switchboards.

In 1964, the Sydney station 2UW announced over the air that they were dropping the broadcast of soap opera serials. As a result, the station was flooded with some 50,000 telephone calls from listeners who objected, and wanted the serials re-instated.

In 1952, station 2LM in Lismore made an appeal over the air for the benefit of two children who lost their parents in a car accident. So many listeners responded that the telephone system in this country city was overloaded, and literally, it blew up.

All of these interesting radio and telephone stories are based upon information in the excellent book on Australian Radio History by Dr. Bruce Carty, together with additional research information. Dr, Carty has made his extensive research available for free on the internet. Just search for Carty Radio History Australia.

Our next interesting story along these lines will tell of another overloaded telephone system that also blew up. The Invasion of the Asian Sea Monster!

Australian Shortwave Callsign VLS

The legend of Hinemoa was passed on from generation to generation, long before any migrants from Europe settled on the islands of New Zealand, the Land of the Long White Cloud. Princess Hinemoa was the pretty daughter of a Maori Great Chieftain, and she had fallen in love with handsome Prince Tutanekai, the son of a local Maori Chief.

Princess Hinemoa lived near the water front of Lake Rotorua, a large inland lake, and Prince Tutanekai lived on Mokaia Island in the center of the lake. The hidden romance, forbidden by local custom, became well known, and the canoes at the water front were protected, so that Hinemoa could not paddle out to the island.

However, one night, Princess Hinemoa clad herself with dry, empty Calabash Gourds, and she swam out to the island, guided in the darkness by the music that Tutanekai was playing on his own home made flute. She arrived at the island, met her handsome prince; and like all good European legends, this Maori couple in New Zealand lived happily ever after.

Named in honor of this princess, the small New Zealand coastal vessel, Hinemoa, just 542 tons and only 207 feet long, was built in the Scott shipyards in Greenock, Scotland in 1875. At the beginning of World War I (1914), the Hinemoa was listed with wireless apparatus operating under the New Zealand callsign (as it was at the time) VLS. Due to new international radio regulations, all radio callsigns in New Zealand beginning with VL were changed to ZL on January 1, 1929, and thus the little ship NZGSS Hinemoa dropped the callsign VLS and received a new callsign.

The Australian usage of the shortwave callsign VLS was taken up by the AWA shortwave station in Pennant Hills, near Sydney, and it was in use during the 1920s and 1930s for the Trawler Communication Service in both voice and Morse Code for the ships that plied along eastern coastal waters. In addition, the long distance communication service from Pennant Hills was registered under the callsign VIS, though sometimes this was erroneously identified as VLS, due to the similarity in callsigns.

During the year 1933, Donald Mackay, leader for the Mackey Aerial Survey Expedition in Central Australia, took mobile wireless equipment for use on the ground and in the air. It is understood that the callsign that he used while at Docker Creek on the border between Northern and Western Australia, was VLS.

Interestingly a total of five different shortwave locations, in use by the ABC Home Service in Australia and the international service of Radio Australia, have all operated under the callsign VLS. We look at each of these occasions in chronological order.

Soon after the end of World War II, the ABC in Australia began assessing their radio coverage throughout the continent, and they observed that mediumwave coverage in the heavily populated coastal areas north and south of Sydney was insufficient. It was determined that it would be more economical to provide a radio service to these areas on shortwave from one single location, rather than to install a network of several medium powered mediumwave stations.

The chosen location for this new shortwave station was on the western and southern edge of Sydney, just beyond suburban Liverpool. This was already the location for all of the mediumwave transmitters that carry the two program services, ABC National and ABC Local, for coverage of Australia's largest city.

Interestingly, during the planning for the new 2 kW shortwave transmitter, the evidence suggests that the suggested callsign would be VLS, with the S obviously standing for Sydney. However, when the transmitter was installed and taken into regular service in December 1948, an even more logical callsign was granted; VLI, with the LI indicating Liverpool.

Twenty years later (1960s and 1970s), another well-established ABC/Radio Australia shortwave station was already on the air at Lyndhurst in Victoria with programming beamed to the Great Outback, the Pacific and South East Asia. During each summer season, one of the 10 kW transmitters at Lyndhurst was placed into service for the broadcast of live commentaries on the ever popular sport, cricket.

The Lyndhurst transmitter that beamed the cricket commentaries to New Zealand and the Pacific was given the unannounced callsign VLS. Then, for example, during the next decade, in December 1980, a 10 kW transmitter at the larger shortwave station at Shepparton, also in Victoria, took over the VLS cricket broadcast for New Zealand and the Pacific.

A new and temporary shortwave facility was installed for Radio Australia at Brandon near Townsville in Queensland in 1989. The original intent was ultimately for a much larger station, and initially only three transmitters at 10 kW each were installed. However, only two antenna systems were erected, and thus only two transmitters could be activated at any one time.

The third transmitter, which was originally intended to carry its own separate programming, thus operated instead as a fill in for the other two. That third transmitter was originally allocated the callsign VLS.

During the 1990s, one of the 250 kW transmitters at the Darwin relay station of Radio Australia was allocated the line callsign S, as in VLS, as a program service to Asia and beyond. Back at that time, Radio Australia was issuing QSLs in the form of a Form Letter, and the verification text gave the callsign as VLS.

And for the final application of the Australian shortwave callsign VLS, we mention the shortwave Aeradio station that carries aviation communications with passenger aircraft in the vicinity of the Kingsford Smith Airport at Mascot, Sydney. Several shortwave transmitters have been in use at this location during the past half century and more, and they are rated at 3 kW, 5 kW and 10 kW. QSL cards from Sydney Aeradio and also Sydney Volmet identify this station under the callsign VLS.