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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 N665, November 21, 2021
The Sound of Maria
Maria Island, Tasmania
In our program today, we focus on Maria, not only the Maria in the Sound of Music, but also Maria, the small island with that name that lies off the east coast of the much larger Australian island called Tasmania.
You might remember, that back around a year ago (October 25, 2020), we presented a story here in Wavescan about the small and absolutely ferocious animal known as the Tasmanian Devil. Two hundred years ago, the Tasmanian Devil was named scientifically as Sarcophilus satanicus, meaning Satanic Fleshlover. This animal is described in scientific circles as a marsupial; that is, an animal that is carried after its birth in its mother's pouch, like the Australian Kangaroo.
After 21 days, a baby Devil is born with a weight of just .007 of an ounce, and it then moves into its mother's pouch in the same way like the baby Kangaroo and the Wombat and the Koala Bear. There can be up to four young Devils in the pouch at any one time, though even there they will fight and kill.
In our story last year (2020), we mentioned that scientists in Australia have developed a breeding program to avoid the animal becoming extinct. As part of that preservation program, an insurance colony of twenty eight of these small dog-sized, jet black Tasmanian Devils was transferred onto small Maria Island off the coast of the larger island Tasmania. Since then, the colony has grown now to more than one hundred.
However, a recent news item from Australia states that the Maria Island experiment has come at the expense of other forms of wildlife on the island. The population of several species of small birds has diminished, and, for example, a population of 3,000 breeding pairs of small penguins has totally disappeared, victims to the vicious Tasmanian Devil.
Maria Island is a very irregular mountainous island (actually a double island joined by a narrow isthmus) which is located off the central east coast of Tasmania. This double island is 12 miles long (north-south) and 8 miles wide (east-west) at the widest points. Much of the island is these days a National Heritage Park.
Maria Island was named by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in honor of Maria van Diemen, the wife of Anthony van Diemen, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. The original pronunciation of the island name was ma-RYE-a, though these days it is known as ma-REE-a.
Before the colonial era, Maria Island was visited and occasionally populated by Tasmanian Aboriginals who spoke their own languages separate from the Australian mainland. In the early colonial days, Maria Island was a penal colony; and these days the only residents on the island are a few semi-permanent Park Rangers.
In the early 1900s, a small house known as Mrs. Hunt's Cottage was built over the ruins of a former administration building. In 1923, the National Portland Cement Company Ltd. was opened on Maria Island for the production of ground-up cement powder for the Australian market. That was when Ruby Hunt, together with her husband Henry and infant son Billy, first lodged on the island. Their daughter Anne was born 4 years later.
Soon after the cement factory became operational, a small communication wireless station was installed, and it operated under the Tasmanian callsign 7NP. After only half a dozen years of operation, production at the cement factory ended due to difficult logistics upon the island, and the poor quality of cement.
The factory closed in July 1930, the need for radio communication station 7NP ended, and most people left the island, all except a half dozen local landowners who chose to remain on their small farm land estates on Maria Island. In fact, 12 identical cottages owned by the cement company were dismantled, shipped to the Tasmanian mainland, and re-erected in suburban Hobart, the state capital.
Some 10 years later, in January 1940, the semi-government radio organization AWA gave approval for the installation of a small pedal wireless communication station on Maria Island. There was a new war in Europe just three months old, with serious overtones in the Pacific, and the small somewhat isolated Maria Island needed communication with the Tasmanian mainland. An outdated pedal wireless facility was installed, due to the fact that there was no distribution of electricity on the island.
Eleven years later (1951), and after an absence of more than 20 years, Ruby Hunt, now well into her 60s and recently retired from her nursing responsibilities in the Lachlan Park Hospital near Hobart, returned to Maria Island as a resident once again. Ruby Hunt took over the operation of the pedal wireless station, which corresponded regularly with the AWA Coastal station VIH in suburban Hobart. In her local colloquial style, she called it the "blower".
Three years later (1954), the radio equipment failed and it was off the air for more than a week. A radiotrician from Hobart flew in to correct the technical fault. Ten years later again (1964), a more modern set of transceiver equipment was installed.
In 1968, Maria Island was taken over by the state government as a nature reserve, and most of the residents left the island for better circumstances elsewhere. Ruby Hunt was one of the very last to leave, and she died on the Tasmanian mainland soon afterwards.
Anna Maria Island, Florida
Interestingly, there is another Maria Island, and this one is located off the central western coast of the Florida Peninsula in the United States. More accurately though, this Maria Island is called Anna Maria Island.
The American Anna Maria Island is seven miles long and mostly just a few yards wide, except at the northern end where it extends to a width of almost a mile. It is a tourist island, with a resident population of some 8,000 people.
Ten years ago (2011), a small informal and very low powered mediumwave station was installed in a small blue building at 120 Bridge Street at Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island. This station operated on 1700 kHz under its own callsign WAMI, and its coverage has been quite limited. Currently, the company address for the "Voice of the Island" seems to be abandoned.