Robert Brand has suggested:
There should be a huge celebration of the 50th anniversary of the compact opening and Invite the Prime Minister, and/or Minister for Communications to attend with press, etc.
A re-enactment of that first phone call that was ever so important hooking up all the prime ministers can also be an achievable goal.
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.
1 How I became involved in Vietnam.
I was an engineer with OTC (Overseas Telecommunications Corporation) from 1973 to 1994 when I retired. From 1985 I worked as the Project Manager in charge of a number of projects most of which were offshore; mainly in Vietnam and Malta as well as Laos and Cambodia. Vietnam was both OTC’s and my first venture into Foreign construction projects. Factors which led to the decision to get involved in the Vietnam project included:
– OTC’s General Manager, George Maltby, was keen to expand our strong reputation in International Communications into Consulting and Construction areas.
– The Australian Ambassador to Vietnam saw the need for modern communications from Vietnam as essential to that country’s recovery from the war, and subsequent trade sanctions.
– Vietnam was keen to re-establish trading relations with the west, and saw good communications as being essential.
– DFaT was very supportive.
When offered the position of Project Manager for Vietnam I jumped at it.
My first trip was as head of the team to negotiate the contract, in Ha Noi, and to gather technical information, in Ho Chi Minh City, (which I will as the locals still do, call Saigon). OTC senior management’s last briefing comment was to “get the best deal you can” which I interpreted to mean that we were expected to come back with a contract. The delegation consisted of; a technical expert, Dave Wicks; a marketing expert, Brian Curran; an ex-member of DFaT whose name I will not mention because of his subsequent notoriety but who nevertheless proved invaluable as he had been two IC in Hanoi before joining OTC; and myself.
Although OTC was installing ES’s in Antarctica and Xmas Island the Vietnam project was a ‘first’ in that it was in a foreign, communist, non English speaking country.
However, I was keen and when I met my opposite number in Vietnam I felt very comfortable…. he was my size !
2 First Impressions
We didn’t realise it then but the flight from Bang Kock to Ha Noi gave us a good indication of what to expect
As we waited in the departure lounge to board the Air Vietnam aircraft, a Russian Tupolov 132, which stood about 50 metres from the glass doors of the departure lounge, our expert from DFaT ushered us to the front of the crowd milling around the locked doors.
When boarding was announced the doors opened and we were swept up in a most undignified stampede of sometimes aging and portly officials running the 50 metres to the aircraft, constantly being encouraged to run faster by our one experienced member. The reason was clear when we got into the aircraft.
Many of the seats had minimal or no padding, sometimes the backs were falling onto the following seats. First in got the good seats. Luggage was piled inside the entrance door without any restraint and the carpet down the aisle was worn through to the aluminium deck. Naturally this did nothing to bolster my confidence. However, while the plane was very underpowered by western standards and took forever to actually get off the ground; once in the air all went well and the pilot got us down to a perfect landing at Hanoi.
In Ha Noi there was very little sign that the country had been through two major wars in the previous 30 years. On approach to Ha Noi we could see a few strings of bomb craters in the paddy fields and in Ha Noi the bridge over the Red River had been bombed and the destroyed spans replaced by military style “Bailey” bridges. These spans are still there. I checked satellite photographs on Google Earth yesterday.
Everything was seriously in need of renewal and maintenance. The degree of decay had to be seen to be believed. When we got to Saigon the situation was better but still very run down.
3 Accommodation.
When I first visited Vietnam the only Europeans in Hanoi were Embassy staff and in Saigon, one or two who had stayed on with their Vietnamese families after the war, and the very rare businessman trying to develop import/export business. We met one of the expats in Saigon when he heard we were in town and decided to organise a birthday party for himself. Fortunately, none of us needed to drive home.
Consequently there was very little call for Western Quality Accommodation. Only one hotel in Ha Noi and one in Saigon made any attempt at all to supply this market. The Thong Ngat in Ha Noi was built by the architect of the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. During the early 1900’s it was a magnificent building in keeping with the Opera House and many other buildings from that era in Ha Noi. Ha Noi was known as the “Jewel” or the “Pearl of the Orient”. The French architecture and landscaping, while in 1986 terribly decayed were clearly magnificent when new. An artificial lake of some 10 to 20 hectares with surrounding gardens in the centre of Ha Noi had deteriated essentially to a cess pool.
A little story about the Thong Ngat. Early in 1987 my wife, Colleen travelled with me to Vietnam – her visit is a story in itself – and we stayed in the Thong Ngat. There was no hot water in our room – well suite actually – and sometimes no water at all. Hotel staff kept promising to fix it but to no avail. After several days of cold showers we were reluctantly accepting that any improvement was unlikely. Until one day I arrived back from a meeting in mid afternoon to find that there was hot water. I yelled to Colleen and we could not strip off fast enough to get our first hot shower for several days. How it happened I don’t know but the hot water came out of the “cold” tap and after about 30 minutes disappeared never to return on that visit.
Saigon has been a more commercial and utilitarian city and this is reflected in the buildings – less decayed as the South was a productive economy until 1975. In Saigon I stayed in the Ben Than. For any of you who may have been in Saigon before 1975 it was then known as the Rex. Despite being operated by the Communist Regime since 1975 the large decorative Crown was still on the lobby wall with its outlining lights still switched on. This hotel was known for its practice of placing small flags of the countries of the diners on their tables in the dining room. When Colleen and I were there they found Australian and New Zealand flags to continue the tradition for us.
4 The People
Most of the people I worked with were well educated and capable – and were excellent and tough negotiators, always looking for that little bit extra. However, once agreement was reached they carried out their side of the deal meticulously. My opposite number was a northerner who spoke Vietnamese, French and German but no English. The director Foreign Relations of the Vietnamese Communications Department was Madam Nga, a fascinating lady. She had fought in the hills with Ho Chi Minh as an 18 year old. After the French were defeated she was sent to Moscow to study engineering. She spoke 7 languages fluently including English and on many occasions was able to discretely correct the interpreters. OTC organised for her to visit Sydney and Colleen and I were able to have her to dinner at our house in Epping.
Vietnam was an absolute economic basket case in 1986 and children would frequently beg from the foreigners. The adults, particularly the men, were very much down on this and would chase the children away if they saw any begging. Nevertheless we used to give any spare cash or small notes we had to the children when the opportunity arose. One story in particular comes to mind. In Saigon there were many Eurasian street kids abandoned by their fathers when the war ended. One of these, a bright little fellow of about 11 years old, who I will call Harry, was attracted to me and each time I came to Saigon he would appear and want to chat with me. He walked with a limp and had one arm that dangled awkwardly because of polio but this in no way detracted from his bubbling and friendly personality. More about him later. Needless to say these kids always got any spare cash that I had.
Also in Saigon I was fortunate enough to meet Madam Di. Again any of you who have been in Vietnam may have heard of Madam Di. She was widely known for the quality of a restaurant she owned before 1975. I met her through our ex DFaT member who took us to her, then much smaller restaurant; it was one room in the house where she and many other Vietnamese lived. We had an excellent meal of steak with French Wine. Lord knows how she got it. It could be because she frequently hosted dinners for members of the Government.
While in Ha Noi on my first visit the Australian Ambassador hosted a dinner for both the negotiating teams and selected members of the Vietnamese Government. That was where I met Mr. Wang. Over coffee and port I was talking to Mr Wang who was the Vietnamese Finance Minister and he was expansively and surprisingly openly criticising the Vietnamese Government and the Communist System. Although there were no other government officials within earshot I had visions of him being taken away and shot the next day. Later I told our ex DFaT member about my discussion with Wang. He said no problems and told me Wang was:
– From the South;
– Married to an Indian film star who had acted in one of the early Bond films;
– Had been Finance Minister for the South before 1975;
– Was a past President of the World Bank; and
– Was very good at his job.
Consequently his intransigence was tolerated provided he was reasonably discrete and in any case if he became too much of a problem the Gov’t would simply pension him off as he was in his seventies at that time. Did I mention that the Vietnamese are a very pragmatic people?.
5 Conclusion
I feel privileged to have been involved in the start of an economic revolution in Vietnam. The Satellite Earth Station in Saigon that I Project Managed was noted for:
– providing the first modern communications to the West since 1975;
– its first 4 voice channels were fully occupied 24 hrs/day from switch-on;
– within 3 months capacity had been expanded to 12 channels;
– within 6 months capacity was up to 24 channels;
– within 12 months capacity was up to 48 channels;
– within 2 years a second ES was planned for Saigon and as well as a new ES in Ha Noi.
From 1986 to 1990 I saw:
– bicycles largely replaced by motor cycles in Saigon,
– beginnings of the same change in Ha Noi;
– Vietnam had moved from a net importer of food to an exporter;
– development of coal mines in the north by Joint Venture Aust. companies;
– development of offshore oil exploration by Joint Venture Aust. Companies;
– development of a fish export business by Joint Venture Aust. Companies;
– the tourist industry beginning to boom.
This economic revolution was, I believe, largely due to the pragmatism of the Vietnamese Government in turning a blind eye to capitalistic type development in the South and a “Can Do” attitude of the Vietnamese people.
This is perhaps best illustrated by the rest of the story about my little Eurasian friend, Harry. It was after I had seen Harry several times that he asked me in broken English if I could get him some soap. I said I didn’t have any and why did he want it? He said “to get the nits out of his hair”. He also suggested that “I could get some from the hotel room”. I was on my way to a meeting and told him to meet me next day. Next day Harry is no where to be seen but immediately I walk out of the Hotel a tall Eurasian girl of about 14 years old approaches and by imitating her brother’s limp and swinging arm (presumably from Harry having contracted polio) indicates she has been sent to get the soap. A couple of days later Harry appears again thanking me for the soap and apologising in broken English for not coming himself. I asked where was he?. He says he was at Madam Di’s. This surprised me as why would a proprietor of an up market restaurant have any interest in a Street Kid. ……. Harry said she runs a school for Street Kids teaching English and Mathematics.
Just to round this off I should tell you that the deal that OTC negotiated with the Vietnamese cost the Vietnamese nothing except the commitment to route their traffic through Australia for five years. By virtue of the peculiarities of International Communications Traffic Accounting this generated very substantial cash flows to Vietnam, and, needless to say, it was extremely profitable to OTC. And hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees in Canada, USA, France, and of course Australia were able to talk to their families in Vietnam.
eLONG DISTANCE BLIND DATE VIA OTC
Introduction
I was talking to my Aerobics instructor a little while ago at the YMCA in Alice Springs and she told me of her story about finding her future husband (living in Canada) on the Internet. Happily, several years and a couple of kids later they are still together.
This made me think of my own experience in the area of long distance blind dating courtesy of OTC. It started in 1974 when I was doing a stint of field training at the Paddington Telephone exchange.
Paddington ARM Exchange
It was late February, 1974 and I had my field training orders to report to Jim Hulme on the Third floor at Paddington OTT. I was one of those trainees that got my Technical course over in the first two years so that the final two years were left over to field training and system courses.
I soon got into the swing of things learning the ropes as to what a trainee technician was supposed to do – apart from the obvious smoko and lunch boy duties. I learned that if I had someone to ring I could make long distance phone calls. As it happened my parents were overseas at that time – in England on a holiday. I had the phone number for the hotel they were staying at in London so I asked if I could make a call.
Calling England
I think the tech that helped me was a guy named Cliff Varcoe – I gave him the number and he dialled on an FDR tester then left me alone. The operator at the hotel answered and I asked if this was the Eaton House Hotel. Apparently I had the wrong hotel but in the next breath she exclaimed ‘ Your Australian aren’t you’ and so began what seemed like a long conversation.
The operator’s name was Eileen, an Irish girl living and working in London. I told her my name and then we exchanged phone numbers.
London calling
I had almost forgotten about the incident – although initially I did have some qualms about whether the ‘phone police’ would have me for making a ‘bodgie call’. One Saturday afternoon I was at home when a call came – my brother said it was somebody calling from England.
Long Distance Blind date
Eileen started calling on a regular basis – she was working as a night telephonist at a hotel so it wasn’t too hard to get the timing right. I couldn’t return the calls easily because I had moved on from the exchange but I did write regularly – I even sent her a photo of myself. Eileen was supposed to send one back of herself but never did get round to this.
I had been planning a trip overseas for a little while (it was supposed to be to the U.S) but eventually my focus turned to the U.K. It was now the middle of 1974 and decided to take the trip in early 1975 to ensure that it would fit in with the final year of my training program.
Interestingly Eileen’s wrong number was not the only one that occurred that year and lead me to a meeting with another woman courtesy of OTC.
Another Wrong Number
I had been sent to Operations branch – Head Office in early 1974 and sat next to a gentleman that I often thought was an interesting character (some might say other words) named Bill Breeze.
Bill had a frantic way of dialling on the PABX handset which eventually rubbed off on me – I happened to be using the Breeze method one day when (as often happened ) I got a wrong number. A young lady answered and it turned out to be George Maltby’s personal secretary.
I started up a conversation with her and she told me her name was Janice – we even met for coffee once where she told me she was engaged – we agreed to stay friends and I would see her at Christmas parties and other staff functions whenever I was based in town over the next few years.
Several years later we would even go out together for a while but that is a story for another time. Looking back I was probably lucky that I didn’t dial George Maltby direct.
The rest of 1974
The remainder of 1974 was a mixture of field training postings and courses. I was down to do a Satellite course with Roy Docherty and had various postings at Broadway and Paddington.
I can remember doing my time with Tony (buddy) Bertoni at Paddington in the back of ISTC listening to him talking about building his boat. I ended up with a group of apprentices making relay sets for the upgrade to the ARM exchange under the control of Bill Kay. One of the most interesting visits to Paddington that year happened after dark.
Television servicing course
At the start of 1974 I decided to do a night course on Television receiver servicing. The course was run over a year two nights per week – Thursday and Friday. There were several other OTC personnel on the course – one of them I recall was Carlo Vigiliante.
Often we would make a night of it after the lectures – particularly on Friday nights and I remember one night Carlo said he just had to duck back to work to pick up something. At that time Carlo worked on the first floor at Paddo in the ITMC.
It was very interesting see how Paddo ran after hours – the guys from the various floors contributed to a veritable banquet – I think I heard that they even had the only Chines Ju (Peter on the third floor) in OTC helping with the cooking effort – I don’t think it happened every week but I certainly thought it might be a good place to work when I finished my training.
The trip
In 1975 I went on my great adventure arriving in London in mid January. I still didn’t know what I Eileen looked like because she had not sent the promised photo. We agreed to meet in front of a Sports Store outside Liverpool St Station (I was coming in on a train from the Cross channel ferry).
I stood in front of that sports store for about two hours when I decided to walk around a little and found at least two other similar stores close by. Taking matters into my own hands I made my way to the address I had for her in Hammersmith. We had a tearful meeting on her front door and the rest was everything a young relatively inexperienced bloke could ask for – she was a little older than me (one of the original cougars) but it didn’t worry me in the least.
Going home
I had only scheduled a trip of about 5 weeks due to training commitments that were scheduled for the rest of 1975. In late February I was on the way back to Australia – it probably would have been the end of the story but we agreed to keep in touch – we even looked at the possibility of her emigrating or at least coming out for a holiday.
Meanwhile training had to go on which included several course including another satellite based course under Roy Docherty and longer field trips to Moree and Carnarvon.
Moree, Carnarvon and Ceduna
I was sitting in the tearoom at Moree Earth Station in early 1975 when the secretary came in and said I had a call from England. It was Eileen and she had found me before I had a chance to write and tell her my telephone number.
I talked to her for a while and later went back to the Pub I was staying at in town. The publican told me that one of her staff members (an English backpacker) had come up to her and asked where was “ London – Nothern NSW “ because he had a call for one of the guests from there.
This started a pattern that would continue for the rest of the year and into 1976 where I would be posted to places such as Carnarvon and Ceduna but Eileen would always manage to find me by phone.
Leo Mahoney was the king of Carnarvon (or should I say station manager) and his deputy was Stan Perry – my time over there corresponded with the sacking of Gough Whitlam which I recall was a hot topic of debate in the tearoom.
Late in 1975 I got a call from Barry Stockbridge who was the works supervisor at the time asking me whether I would be able to go to Ceduna for 6 months as leave relief for one of the technicians. I wasn’t too keen on the idea but eventually decided to go ending up there in early 1976.
London calling Ceduna
I hadn’t settled into work at the earth station very long when one morning I was called to the main control desk to take a phone call. Of course it was Eileen and we talked for a short while. It was later after I hung up that the technician manning the shift desk – Bob Pearson – told me something interesting.
To set the scene it needs to be remembered that although I was working at this state of the art Earth Station in Ceduna – the town itself was still using a manual exchange with magneto ringers on the telephones.
When Bob answered the phone and said that I would answer he heard several go aheads down the line as various operators linked up the call.
Back to Sydney
I eventually escaped to Sydney (6 months later) – away from the clutches of Austin Houseman and Kerry Adams. I returned to my original posting in Engineering branch and after doing a few courses ended up in Building services under Wal Donald.
I kept corresponding with Eileen for and she kept ringing – but after a while the calls gradually dropped off – I believe she eventually found someone closer to home and closer to her own age. However over the next few years I would occasionally get a call and I could tell it was international but the person would never speak.
Going 12,000 miles for it
I continued on my time in Building services for the next few years working on the redevelopment of Paddington and La Perouse. Eventually I was sent to Paddington in the late 70s where I initially worked under Dave Alder. Later I worked under Bill Dunne doing battery room jobs on the ground and second floors.
I looked back on that wonderful adventure that I had experienced because of a wrong number (courtesy of OTC). I was never a great one with the ladies and some of my mates would often say that they knew a bloke that
“ Had to go 12,000 miles for it”
From Kevin O’Brien
Attached is a bit of Trivia from Wiki for you from the past about a second life for Australia’s first Intercontinental Telephone Exchange.
After OTC installed & commissioned the Ericsson ARM, the British Post Office purchased the Paddo exchange from OTC. It was installed in Wood Street, London and was named the “Wood Street Relief unit”.
I visited Wood Street in 1971 and asked if I could see the old Paddo exchange. There it was the same switch I used to work on in Sydney now “clacking” away on Atlantic circuits. To my surprise they had left the Australian labels on the test desk/rack key switches. I asked one of the guys working there at the time did he know the meaning of JTA and JFA.
He said he did not know what the letters stood for but he just knew them as one way outgoing/ incoming junctions.
We all had a chuckle after I informed them that the abbreviations stood for Junction from Australia JFA and junction to Australia JTA.
I don’t know if they ever changed the labels to Junction from/to England??? (JFE’s and JTE’s)
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
Robert Brand has published some very interesting stories and videos.
Please have a look and give me your feedback either via emailo or a comment below (requires you to register online with WordPress).
Note: If you need advice on how to register check out the instructions available via the home page of the BLOG)
From Jim Simpson:
Memories of another time in space exploration…
Just 100 days to next Mars landing.
Aloha,
Hoping all is well with you.
Some exciting developments have been taking place for Fanning Island. I am wanting to get you updated since we last met, communicated and/or traveled on the cruise ships. I have been consolidating all the business cards and contact information given to me from everyone who desired to know more or keep updated as to how things are for Fanning Island. This is why you received this email. If you desire to not be on this email list please let me know and I will remove your address.
The recent April Holland America Volendam cruise-ship that I traveled on was really a special one. Over ten boxes of supplies donated by the passengers and ship were collected and delivered to the Island council. Since 2003, so many other supplies have also been received and delivered with the help of the cruise-ships. I again want to thank those of you who have helped in some way. The people on Fanning so appreciate your compassion and Love.
A recent Volendam sailing was one not to be forgotten. An elderly lady from Australia was also on the ship and she had been born and raised on Fanning till she was 18 yrs. old. While on the ship as it returned to Vancouver BC, a special Good Morning Volendam interview/slide show presentation was allowed and she was able to tell her story of life on Fanning while being the daughter of the coconut plantation manager. It was such a great event.This video can now be seen at this address: https://vimeo.com/43439378
If you want to see other information and recent updates please visit the Pacific CARE Missions website: www.pacificcaremissions.org . There are some great write-ups and picturesof what has happened on the recent cruises.
Until we can sail and hopefully meet again,
RICH SMITH
Director Pacific CARE Missions
(970)389-0363
Robert told me that the owner has scrapped a lot of the hardware associated with the site that would enable the disk to be returned to service but with a bit of lateral thinking the dish can still become useful in rebuilding the site as a piece of communications infrastructure.
Check out the following web site for the latest news on the purchase of this significant piece of telecommunications history:
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