Plays to history at Carnarvon.

NBN Co has decided to build a satellite ground station near a former tracking station that was involved in NASA’s Apollo Moon project.

The Shire of Carnarvon Council has approved negotiations for the sale of land adjacent to the former Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC) satellite earth station.

The station provided mostly communications support for NASA’s own tracking station, located about five kilometres away.

Construction on the NBN Co satellite ground station is due to begin next year.

“The new NBN ground station is set to give Carnarvon an economic boost, which is great news for the area and an important initiative that has actively been pursued by Council staff,” Carnarvon Shire President, Karl Brandenburg, said.

The Carnarvon site is one of three chosen in Western Australia to host NBN ground facilities.

A further two ground stations are to be built at Moonyoonooka, about 13 kilometres east of Geraldton, and at Binduli, which is 11 kilometres southwest of Kalgoorlie.

All three locations were known to be under negotiation for several months.

The regional investments by NBN Co were welcomed by the respective councils.

NBN Co will have a total of ten ground stations supporting its satellite service. Viasat won a $280 million contract to build the facilities.

From Tony Belts & Kevan Bourke:

On the morning of August 17, 2012, the Globe Wireless Seatex service was shut down, this was the last remaining HF service at Gnangara Maritime Coast Station which has been operating in its current form for Globe Wireless since 1997, and many years before that when owned by OTC.

This marks the end of an era with some 45 years of continuous HF service at the Maritime Coast Station, a sad day for many people. OTC moved to Gnangara from their old transmitting station at Bassendean in 1966, having operated from there for many years prior to that.

I have heard it said that Gnangara was once the largest commercial HF station in the southern hemisphere. In this time it has seen Seatex, Seaphone, Radio Telephone (Radphone – RTF), Radphone Direct Dial (RDD), Radio TeleGraph (Morse – RTG), Radio TeleType (RTT), Global Maritime Distress Surveillance System (GMDSS), Safety Of Life At Sea (SOLAS), Digital Selective Calling (DSC), Qantas and other aviation HF services, plus other services. It operated as VIP (Perth) and in later years added VID (Darwin) when that closed.

Gnangara had radio operators and staff working 24/7 for many years. The radio staff alone in 1995 had 7 staff working flat out.

From Bob Shoemark:

G’day Peter The email below mentions that the OTC dishes at Carnarvon were being identified as NASA dishes with the recent visit of Buzz Aldrin to Carnarvon. OTC is becoming bigger than life.

Cheers, Bob

—–Original Message—–

From: Colin Mackellar [mailto:colin@honeysucklecreek.net]

Sent: Saturday, 23 June 2012 4:09 PM

To: Honeysuckle

Subject: Buzz in Carnarvon

 Saturday, 23 June 2012

 Dear Honeysuckle and Carnarvon friends,

 My apologies for an additional e-mail, but you might be interested to see some footage from Buzz Aldrin’s visit to Carnarvon for today’s opening of the space museum.

 Ken McKay from <http://watvhistory.com/> in Perth has put together a montage of news footage shown last night in Perth.

 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGYVRO6Ygu8>

  (We won’t mention the fact that the OTC 42 and 90 foot antennae are

sometimes identified as the NASA antenna. or a few other inaccuracies… 😉

 I think that’s Frank Vinton at 1’55 and Paul Dench is seen momentarily at 2’12”.

 Ken has also put together this feature on WA’s role.

 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlMwuhT3c4s>

 and Terry Kierans appears at 9’02”, and there’s one of Tom Sheehan’s photos of the FPQ6 at 9’16. 🙂 with best wishes

 Colin