1871, 1872 – Australia’s first overseas telegraph connection

November 1871 saw the first telegraph cable connecting to Australia in Darwin from Banjoewangi in Java.
On the 22nd August 1872 the Overland Telegraph was connected from Adelaide to Darwin completing the telegraph project by Sir Charles Todd.

Here are a few stories from the OTVA collection to aid the Sesqui-Centenary celebrations on 22nd August 2022, the 150th anniversary of the connection between Adelaide and the outside world through Darwin and Java all the way to England.

OTC celebrated the Centenary of the Cables in 1971 with at least 2 publications

The Overseas Telecommunications Veterans count their time from this first cable landing on the mainland of Australia connecting Australia with the world.

This is our, and other telecommunications professionals heritage, hence there have been many stories over the years in our OTVA Veterans’ Newsletters about this and subsequent telecommunications ventures in Australia and the World. Our members continue the fine tradition of providing new and maintaining Communications systems today.

The OTVA Newsletter has run many stories over the years since 1972 about the Overland Telegraph Cable and the first Cable from Java to Darwin. Here are a few of the recent newsletters that have been following the Sesqui-Centenary anniversary.

• OTVA Newsletter June 2020
  • Sesquicentennial: Commencement of Overland Telegraph
  • Connected in Darwin to The Java – Darwin Cable
  • OTC / C&W “ding” we had in November 1971 OTVA Newsletter Feb 1999 OTVA Newsletter Pages 8 – 10)
• OTVA Newsletter September 2020
  • Overland Telegraph Update – Alice Springs & Battery technology
  • Underseas Cables, Heritage listed in NT
  • Underseas Cables Podcast, by the ABC Nightlife
  • More of the Overland Telegraph and Java to Darwin Cable (1872) story
• OTVA Newsletter December 2020
  • Naming of Alice Springs
• OTVA Newsletter March 2021
  • The Overland Telegraph Line-Telecom Australia booklet
  • An End to Silence
• OTVA Newsletter June 2021
  • The Knuckey Story – The Overland Telegraph Line
• OTVA Newsletter September 2021
  • Java – Darwin Telegraph Cable
• OTVA Newsletter Dec 2021
  • 1871 Java – Port Darwin Cable
  • Overland Telegraph – Defining moments
  • The Epic Cycle Ride – from our OTVA Archives
• OTVA Newsletter March 2022
  • 1971 events in Darwin Ding (Centenary of Java-Darwin Cable)

There is more about the sesqui-centenary in the September 2022 Newsletter, but that’s not published as yet. Stay tuned…

1987 Yacht Race from Hobart to Perth,
in time for the America’s Cup Challenge.

Sailing Against the Roaring 40’s

OTC was invited to sponsor a special yacht race in 1987 to link the Sydney to Hobart annual race to the Americas Cup race in Perth.

Image: Start of the race Hobart to Adelaide. Photo Tom Barker.
The OTVA Newsletter of December 2020, and I expect, the March 2021 edition have 2 stories of this race, how it came about, and it’s organisation, both from a managerial view and that of a Radio Operator on the Race relay ship.

Tom Barker explains the origin of the races.

In 1986, Peter Shore was the Manager of OTC Public Relations and he received a visit from the Commodores of three yacht clubs, The Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania (RYCT), the Royal Perth Yacht Club (RPYC) and the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron (RSAYS).
They told him that as the Americas Cup had been won by the RPYC (famously sponsored by Alan Bond) in 1983 and that club was committed to host races in defence of the trophy in Perth, in January 1987, it would be fitting if a series of ocean yacht races could be conducted after the conclusion of the 1986 Sydney Hobart race, which would culminate in the Defence of the Americas Cup, in Fremantle. These races would be from Hobart to Adelaide, Adelaide to Esperance Bay (WA) and Esperance to Perth.

Don Koulaouzos’s application as Radio Officer on the Radio Relay ship was successful.

As Don says “… I was also appointed as Chief Radio Officer (CRO) and would be on duty for the entire duration of the SOYC. It was hard to contain my absolute glee for the rest of the day with this humbling honour and exciting responsibility.
The other successful Radio Officers (RO) who were to join me for each leg of the race were Brian Morgan, Maryanne Lyneham and Peter Gilkes all of us in our mid 20’s.”

Expect to see their full stories in the Newsletters.

Images of the Southern Ocean Yachting Classic 1987

by Greg Martyn. Newsletter Editor.

Privateer arriving in Perth waters 23-1-1987. Photo: Tom Barker.

EFM (Expeditionary Force Messages) were used by members of the Armed Forces & civilians serving overseas, during wartime, with their families in both World Wars.

As part of our research for the September 2020 OTVA Newsletter, a copy of the EFM TEXTS from Cable and Wireless in Fiji, Suva from August 1944 were discovered in our archives.

To aid researchers, who may be interested in EFM Texts, the text of this Table of Codes of EFM’s are listed below.
The graphic of the EFM Texts is here.  [Link: EFM TEXTS. Site OTVA.com]

E. F. M. TEXTS

FOR USE BY BRITISH AND AMERICAN ARMY, NAVY AND MERCHANT MARINE
FROM THE 1st AUGUST, 1944
ANY THREE OF THE UNDERMENTIONED TEXTS MAY BE USED.
PRICES FROM FIJI: 47 CENTS OR 2/6 PER MESSAGE.
IF UNABLE TO LODGE AT CABLE OFFICE MESSAGES CAN BE AIRMAILED TO
CABLE AND WIRELESS LTD., SUVA, FIJI.

NOTE: x Texts 354 to 356 inclusive can be inserted following selection of items in Texts 176 to 179
Texts 319 and 320 for Jewish New Year.
Necessary additional information to be inserted by senders in texts where blank space provided.
Only one item can be inserted in Blank space of Texts 332 and 333.
* The amount in words to be inserted immediately following the text number.
TEXTS BELOW FOR USE BY BRITISH FORCES ONLY

This transcript is published for research of this little known method of telegraphy to keep defense forces in touch with home during WWII. The compression of the text into a simple 3 numeral code, allowed many more messages to be passed than would have been able using full telegraphic code. Note: Morse code would have been in normal use at that time. GM.

OTVA Western Australia 45th AGM and Luncheon

By Kevan Bourke.

On Tuesday the 19th of November, 2019 President Rod Pernich opened the 45th meeting of the Western Australian OTC Veteran’s and welcomed the Vet’s. There has been a large increase in attendance numbers over the past few years due to relaxing of the eligibility requirements, recruiting efforts and retirements.
A special thank you to Don Charles for his efforts on the recruiting front. The new attendees over recent years are mostly ex OTC staff from the Carnarvon earth station and Aussat/Optus. It’s been a bit sad to see the CRS side of attendees decline as they once made up the majority of members. Due to the large number of people present this year the formal part of the meeting was held in the PITC conference room before moving to the lunchroom for some light refreshments and catch up.

Guest Speaker

Guest Speaker Peter Lalor gave a short presentation on the Exmouth Communication Station where he worked for some time which was very interesting and well received.

Carnarvon SES update

Matt Saunders shared some photos from the early days at OTC’s Carnarvon SES. Many involving trail bike riding.
Denham Dunstall gave a plug for the Carnarvon Space and Technology Museum. They have just obtained two ex-NASA Tracking Station antenna’s which will be installed at the museum. Any other items people know about or have that are suitable for display at the museum would be greatly appreciated, especially anything OTC related.

Some photos from the occasion [Photos by Kevan Bourke]

Members at the 45th OTVA(WA) AGM

Lunch is on

Keith, Mark, Ted, Dave & Tony

Andrew and Joe

Peter, Brendan, Chris

Mark and Andrew

Kevin, Paul and Jim

Ian and Tom

The Next OTVA(WA) AGM is on 17th of November 2020.

Carlo Cofini worked with Ted Price, Facilities Manger Telstra, to get the Apollo 11 Moon Landing plaque mounted on the Oxford St wall of the Paddington Terminal building located at 363 Oxford Street.

Carlo also facilitated access to the building and its amenities for the members of the OTVA, CSIRO and guests coordinating with Telstra Security. Well done, Carlo.

Jim Simpson, who represented the OTVA in the series of meetings in Canberra attended by NASA, CSIRO and Telstra prior to the Apollo 11 Anniversary Celebrations, officiated and from all accounts did another excellent job.

The ceremony on 27 August started with REGISTRATION at 12:30pm in the Security area of the Paddington terminal followed by the Plaque unveiling at 1.30pm in the Level 6 Auditorium/Lunch Room during which a light lunch was served. The OTVA also extends its sincere thanks to David Piltz (Chairman of Telstra Heritage) for his support for the installation of the bronze plaque at the Paddington International Terminal to celebrate the contribution of the staff operating the ‘Sydney Video’ centre to the success of the showcasing to the world of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing in July 1969.

The OTVA also extends its heart-felt thanks to Charlie Rudd for his generous donation of the high-quality bronze plaque as he did for the matching bronze plaque installed at the same site to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the commissioning of the Compac cable (3^rd December 1963, co-incidentally, Jim Simpson’s 21^st birthday!).

Jim Simpson acted as Master of Ceremonies for the event introducing the principal presenters and providing those present with first-hand information about the celebrations that occurred in Canberra, Parkes, Honeysuckle Creek and Tidbinbilla over the anniversary weekend 18-21 July 2019.

David Piltz (Telstra Director Fixed & Data Access Engineering & also Chairman, Telstra Heritage Australia) welcomes those present to the ceremony.

David Piltz and Jim Simpson unveil a replica of the new bronze plaque that has now been installed on the Oxford Street wall of the Paddington International Terminal.

Significantly David outlined his vision of a future Australian Telecommunications Museum embracing all participants in Australia’s telecommunications history. David’s vision was applauded by those present and his vision is supported by the OTVA.

John Sarkissian (CSIRO) outlined the contribution of the staff at the Deep Space Radio-Telescope at Parkes, NSW where there were besieged by some 19,500 visitors to ‘The Dish’ over the weekend of 20^th-21^st July 2019, also celebrating the key role that Parkes played with providing optimum TV signals from the Moon to the world via OTC Australia. For an outline from John on the extensive involvement of Australians, including OTC Paddington, in the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing click the link below: https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11_on_eagles_wings.pdf.

Colin Mackellar OAM represented the staff of Honeysuckle Creek that received pictures of that first famous step onto the Moon by astronaut, Neil Armstrong with his now famous words “One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Mankind” & outlined Honeysuckle Creek’s vital role in the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing, not least mission critical telemetry regarding the health & well-being of the astronauts as well as the interaction that they had with the staff with “Sydney Video”.

Some of those present at the ceremony in the former OTC (now Telstra) Lunch Room on Level 6 of the Paddington International Terminal

Colin Mackellar OAM, Michelle Hayward (Photographer), Jim Simpson, David Piltz and Ngar Rairoa (Telstra Security).

Group photo taken on the roof area of Level 6 at Paddo

In the foreground below are Brian Travis, Bruce Boardman, Kevin O’Brien and Owen Duffy

Bob Lewis, Greg Martyn and Doug Kentwell

Owen Langley, John Gibbling, Robin Tuckfield, Will Whyte and Bruce Boardman

Orm Butler, Carlo Viglianti, George Woloszuk and Alfio Vitaliti. Alf was one our quality tour guides of Paddo that is still providing a high level, critical role in Australia’s telecommunications services!

Neil Yakalis, Paul Cope and Tim Jensen

John Sarkissian (CSIRO) and Jim Simpson after reviewing the installation of the plaque.

Jim Simpson, (sporting an OTC tie) & Dagmar Perumal, both from the heady Spring Street days before OTC moved its head office to Martin Place.  In those days, Dagmar was the only female working in OTC’s Drawing office whereas Jim started his time with OTC in January 1959 in the very male dominated Sydney Operating Room when cable code & Morse code were king!

Special Mention: The below link leads to the interview between Luke Hopewell (Telstra Exchange) & Bob Goodman, who was OTC’s prime interface with NASA from ‘Sydney Video’ within the Paddington International Gateway Exchange during NASA’s space program in the late 1960’’s, early 1970’s. <https://1drv.ms/v/s!Aq9X-j6yYt0cwFNqvaoftItu1rhV>

It was unfortunate that Bob’s health didn’t permit him joining those present at the Unveiling. It is of great benefit to all of us that the interview was undertaken by Telstra and recorded for posterity.

Telecommunications Engineering needs recording.

AWA Field Engineers’ role in the NASA Apollo Missions

With all the excitement and reminiscing around the Apollo 11 mission and Man Walking on the Moon for the first time, Bob Rayner recalls details for this story.

Note: Parkes Telescope is Receive Only!

Have been reading and watching TV with interest regarding the Apollo 11 moonwalk mission particularly the almost exclusive coverage to the role played by the Parkes Telescope. This facility had a couple of drawbacks. It is receive only. It will not depress down to the horizon. Not good for orbits due to the horizon problem and the speed of movement. It is quite a massive structure, I have been up into it a few times.

How? Video Parkes and Honeysuckle Creek to OTC Sydney?

Getting to the point. No one has mentioned the problem of getting the video (analog those days) pics from Parkes Telescope and Honeysuckle Creek into the PMG (as this organisation was known) system to be passed to OTC and then Houston. Honeysuckle obviously had their voice and data circuits as it was being used for traffic both ways but apparently no video capability. Honeysuckle was a command station and transmits as well as receives. Had a 20 KW water cooled Klystron sitting under the dish.

Enter AWA Sydney and their Field Engineering section

Enter AWA Sydney and our little Field Engineering section. AWA at the time had several (don’t know how many) 7GHz Television microwave systems for hire. These were quite portable and housed in travel cum usage metal cases. Transmitter and receiver heads mounted directly behind the dish with a purpose made bracket which was bolted onto the dish and connected directly to horn feed. This then connected with a cable to the rest of the works in the travel cases. Dish and heads were normally then mounted on tripods and various means used to mount the whole thing to a tower or other site.

Maybe AWA’s involvement started with Apollo 8

From Peter Bull:

Following on from the reference to Cocos Keeling Islands in our latest newsletter, I recommend to you this link to a documentary on Cocos Keeling Islands provided by John Phillips. You have to sign up for a SBS on demand account with a valid email address to which a validation email can be sent to watch it but you should find it to be worthwhile for our members who have served or visited the islands in the past.

https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/1235286083719/australias-forgotten-islands

It doesn’t cost anything and I found it to be very interesting because I knew very little about the cultural influence and strategic location of Cocos Keeling Islands. I am now better informed.

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From Tony Fisher

This video is definitely worth watching.

There is no mention in the program about OTC’s long history and involvement on Cocos-Keeling Islands, – with the wireless and cable station, – and much later with the Vista service that brought modern day communications to the people of Cocos-Keeling.

Never the less, – the SBS program is not about the history, – more of the uncertainty of the future of the people and their very insular way of life.

For any-one interested in the history of the Cocos Keeling Islands, – there are a couple of very well written books to be tracked down, – one from each of the “perspectives” of the ruling Clunies-Ross family, and that of the Cocos-Malay people.

“Cocos” is an incredible place to visit. I was lucky enough to be there over the Australia Day long weekend in 2017.

Regrettably it is a very strategic location for Australia’s defence capability. Absolutely no doubt in my mind that this was the sole reason the Australian Government went out of their way to de-stabilise and bankrupt the Clunies-Ross family back in the ’70’s, – which paved the way for Australia to “offer” self determination to the local people, and the grand carrot to become part of Australia.

Up to the north, – Christmas Island (Indian Ocean Territories) is facing the same dilemma in respect of its strategic location. In some respects even more so that Cocos Keeling, as “The Rock” is far and away more defensible than the coral atoll at Cocos.

Defence is moving ahead with plans for militarisation of both these Australian Territories. Cocos will lose it’s “golf course”.

The CI runway will need to be extended, and thank goodness it will finally get an ALS. Landings there are pretty “seat of the pants” when the cloud cover is down at or near ground level, – which is pretty frequent.

Apparently the new fibre cable is already landed on CI, – but the Australian Government has kept pretty quiet about it. It does make me wonder though, – why NBN has pushed ahead and installed literally thousands of satellite services on CI. It is actually quite humorous to see. In the 12 months between my last 2 trips, they have sprouted like a mushroom farm on just about every building on the island.

P.s. The old OTC Cocos Island 7.3m Vista dish (West Island) is still there, (probably installed by Greg Suttle circa 1985???), – albeit re-furbished and most likely in use for something else these days. It still has its original “opening” plaque on the base.. The Vista facility was officially opened by Sir Ninian Stephens.  It is the satellite dish in the SBS footage.

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From Noel Sutherland

Some old photos taken from the top of the 20m mast at West Island which is beside the old OTC Vista dish in 2011.

The site is owned by Air Services with Telstra facilities co-located.

Noel Sutherland’s only recollection of Cocos Is was landing on the island in an RAAF chartered 707 in 1965 on the way to Penang, Malaysia with his parents. Due to the Indonesia Confrontation at the time they could not fly over Indonesia.

He remembers walking across the runway from one beach to the other.