From Peter Grove:
Helen Mirzoian (ex-OTC Public Relations and Transit editor) passed away peacefully on Sunday 27th April after losing a long battle against brain cancer.
She was a good lady who passed away far too young.
Now there’s one more angel in heaven. May she rest in peace.
It is with great sadness that I inform you of the passing of Ray Volpatti (ex-Paddington ITMC).
Ray’s wife, Wendy, rang Laurie McIllree on the morning of April 16 to inform him of teh sad news. Ray went into Hospital last week for an operation and died of complications. Ray had only advised a few close friends that he was going into hospital.
I worked with Ray in the Paddington ITMC from the late-1970s to the early-1990s before I resigned from AOTC to join Optus. Ray was always a very laid-back type of operator who had a good relationship with his peers and subordinates. He had a lot of knowledge & expertise that he was always willing to share with us younger blokes coming through the ranks.
We extend our condolences to his wife Wendy, son Matthew and the rest of his family. There is no doubt that he will be sadly missed by friends and family alike.
May He Rest In Peace
Funeral Service:
10.30am
Thursday 24th April
All Hallows Church,
Halley Street, Five Docks NSW.
In attendance at the funeral were:
Jim Simpson; Peter Bull; Lawrie McIlree; Chris & John Vossen; Evelyn & Greg Martyn; Maria & Ray Alford; Brian Travis; Ross Smith; George Woloszuk; Orm Butler; Robin Tuckfield; Carl Viglianti; Geoff Whale & his twin brother; Jim Stevens; and a colleague, Tony.
Fropm Robert Hall, President VIC Branch of the OTVA:
It is with much regret to advise you of the passing of Peter Edwin Dennis on 29th March 2014 aged 78.
Requiem Mass for the Repose of the Soul will be offered at St. Louis de Montfort Catholic Church
37 Dolphin Street Aspendale Vic. On FRIDAY APRIL 4TH AT 11.00AM
Private Cremation will follow.
KINGSTON FUNERALS 03 9585 2822
Peter is survived by his wife Edwina (Teddy) & his children Philip, Marita, Annemarie and Joe and their families
From Carlo Cofini:
Hello Friends and Colleagues,
It saddens me very much to tell you that today we learn of the passing of John Strmecki. Over the last several years John was fighting heart issues. He was recently released from hospital again, but passed away at his home last Saturday at age 52.
John commenced work in OTC days around the 1980’s as a trainee technician. He worked in Engineering Branch and Network Arrangements.
Over recent years John was with Telstra Global located at the Paddington terminal – one of the very few OTC staff left.
Funeral details to be advised when known
From Alison Archer, Shirley’s daughter:
With great sadness, I wish to let you know, that my mother Shirley Richardson, wife of David Richardson, passed away peacefully on Saturday 15th February after a short period in hospital.
We had hoped that a series of chemotherapy infusions would minimise the tumour but she was not well enough to undergo this treatment.
Mum had a very wonderful life and even as recently as late January had been to the movies and an outing with Dad. She is now with her Lord.
A service of Celebration and thanksgiving for her life is to be held on Thursday 20th Feb at 1pm in the Thornleigh Hilcrest Uniting Church, 1-3 Paling St, Thornleigh. A PowerPoint of photos will commence about 12:45pm.
Mum has requested no floral tributes.
Yours sincerely
Alison Archer
From Robert Hall, President, Victorian Branch OTVA
Hi To All,
Sadly I regret to inform you of the passing of our dear colleague Mervyn de Courcey Jessop after nine months suffering finally succumbed and died peacefully at 2.30am this morning Tuesday 21st January 2014 aged 73
Our sincere sympathy and condolences to his wife, Glenda, and Family.
The funeral service will be held at:
Tobin Bros.
331 Maroondah Highway, Ringwood
2pm Friday 24th January 2014
Other details in Herald/Sun tomorrow (Wednesday)
From Anne Kampus (Ulo’s Daughter):
Hi.
I am writing to advise that Ulo Kampus has passed away on 19 January 2014.
The funeral will be held at Rookwood Crematorium, South Chapel, on Friday 24 January at 1.30pm. Anyone that knew him from OTC is welcome.
The family would be most grateful if his friends from OTC could help to celebrate his life at the funeral service.
Dad suffered a brain aneurysm in December – his fourth stroke in about 10 years. Unfortunately he didn’t recover this time and passed away peacefully while in a nursing home in his sleep.
He had been in Prince of Wales hospital for a month, before we had to transfer him to the Castellorizian Aged Care Facility, where he was or only 6 days before he passed away.
Attached are two recent photos from when he was still healthy.
Kind regards
Anne Kampus
0428385385
Robert H Scherf
Bob lost his battle with cancer.
Friends of Bob are invited to attend his funeral services to be held in its entirety in the Guardian Funeral Chapel, First Avenue, Blacktown on Friday 20th December, 2013 at 10.00am
Please address any messages of condolence to his sister:
Mrs M Turner
144 Northcott Road
Lalor Park NSW 2147
Tribute from Les Ayers:
Bob originally started work at age 14 with the Australian Post Office’s telegram services in Mosman. In 1946 he transferred as a Telegraphist over to the recently established Overseas Telecommunications Commission of Australia [OTC(A)], both the main Telegraph Office and Commission’s Head offices were then at that time located in Spring Street, Sydney.
Whilst employed there on seven-day, 24 hour shift work, he was engaged in a very wide variety of duties ranging from Counter acceptance work of International telegrams from the public; the processing of internal services material as a Service Officer; and International Press, Facsimile, Telegraph and Data transmissions. Apart from this, also the normal telephone reception, preparation and transmission of international telegrams along with the reception of telegrams from anywhere in the world where there were telegraph services; either via cables or wireless on the variety of Morse and 5 Unit systems which were then in international use.
With the arrival of the new system, the Message Relay System [MRS], a computer-based International Telegram system then installed at Paddington, all the staff in the Operating Room were re-classified as International Telecommunications Officers. Bob was then promoted to a Senior International Telecommunications Officer’s position. Further promotions followed from Area Controller to Traffic Controller to Acting Shift Supervisor. However, as International Telex, Facsimile and Data transmissions, plus the ever expanding International Telephone usage gradually replaced the International Telegram traffic, all of the OTC[A] systems were eventually taken over by Telstra and ultimately abolished almost completely.
When this occurred in the late 80’s, Bob then took the redundancy package that was offered by OTC[A] and retired. He didn’t last long doing nothing at all though; and soon applied for and obtained a position as a Court Officer in the Attorney General’s & Justice Department and continued working there until the middle of 2012, when he finally gave up work mainly due sadly to his then failing health.
It is with great sadness that the family of William Graham Gosewinckel advise of his passing on Friday November 22 2013
Graham is survived by his wife, Diana, his children, Vanessa, Amanda and Martin and his granchildren, Adam, Matt, Jade, Natasha, Alex, Ben, Mitchelll and Madeleine.
The family will be hosting a Memorial Celebration of Graham’s life at the Greengate Hotel, Pacific Highway Killara, from midday on Wednesday 27 November 2013. Please NOTE: This is a change from the initial advice.
By Cyril Vahtrick:
Graham would have been one of the very first people in OTC to qualify for the original criterion of 25 years’ service in overseas telecommunications for OTVA membership. As I remember it, Graham started as an overseas telegram messenger in AWA in 1944 at the age of 14. He studied in his own time to receive radio technician qualifications and when OTC took over from AWA in 1946, he was posted as a technician to the international receiving station at Rockbank in Victoria. With mounting interest in radio technology, Graham undertook an extensive part time study at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology ending up with a Diploma of Radio Engineering in 1954.
He was appointed as Grade 1 Engineer in OTC head office in Sydney. Here he joined with OTC’s only other Grade 1 Engineer, Ron Flood who had just graduated as an engineer from Sydney University on an OTC cadetship. Despite the already extensive experience which Graham had had in Rockbank, the “powers that be” decided that they both needed on-site experience at the new OTC receiving station at Bringelly. It so happened that the station building at Bringelly contained upstairs two bedrooms plus amenities (no doubt to take care of extra staff called in special emergencies). Graham and Ron took to this life with gusto and they were generally known in OTC circles as the “gay bachelors”. I have to say quickly that the 1950’ terminology was a little different from today, as it was not too long before they had found two very attractive young ladies whom they soon married.
Graham soon took over the reins in running Bringelly and to the rest of the staff, he became indispensable. Ron ended up with an “outdoors” job where he was Ron MacDonald’s assistant in erecting and testing the massive high frequency rhombic antennas both in Bringelly and the transmitting station at Doonside. Not long after I joined OTC in 1954 as a Senior Engineer, I requested that our Grade 1 engineers should be given roles in Head Office to enable them to deal with broader issues which we were rapidly facing in technology developments. Our big assignment up to that point had been to prepare our new technical resources to meet the expected high international telecommunications load expected to ensue from the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956. With the Games successfully behind us we found ourselves wrestling with the new service of international Telex.
Existing submarine telegraph cables, covering the distance required to reach Australia, could not practically deal with the 50 baud speed required of international Telex, leaving it to the High Frequency Radio services to look to accommodate this need. At a British Commonwealth Telecommunications Conference held in London in 1955, it was agreed that Commonwealth Partners would adopt a new standard for international telegraph operation incorporating a facility for “error correction” on radio telegraph circuits. This system was developed and manufactured by Cable and Wireless and was known as TED (telegraph error detection) using a new 7-unit telegraph code. OTC soon found out that this TED system could not be used for Telex and we decided unilaterally to adopt the alternative system endorsed by all the European countries for telex. I recommended that we send Graham to Europe to sort out the kind of equipment we would need for Telex operation on HF radio. By now as a Grade 2 Engineer, this was a big ask for Graham but he successfully confronted the German Siemens complex which produced for us their electromechanically designed error correction system which allowed OTC to introduce our highly successful international telex service.
Almost immediately, there was a rapid demand for telex, requiring expansion of OTC facilities. We had read about attempts to transform this electromechanical system, with its punched tape mechanism, into a fully electronic system Again, Graham was dispatched to Switzerland to evaluate a new system being developed by Hasler. Although crude by to-day’s standards, the Hasler system embodied basic electronic computer technology and, on Graham’s recommendation, represented OTC’s first entry into computer technology. The new system performed well.
While OTC was catching its breath, the era of repeatered submarine cables was quickly upon us, soon making the HF radio systems obsolescent. In addition, while our COMPAC cable system was being established the new medium of Satellite communication was emerging. Graham and Ron Knightley joined me in constant visits to Washington DC during the early formative stages of establishing INTELSAT.
After the first successful series of INTELSAT satellites were established, Graham and I took the view that the further development of satellite communication technology should not be left only to the “rocket science” people in INTELSAT management who really had no interest in telecommunications. We put forward a proposal that future satellite planning should be directed towards global telecommunications needs and not just to how make bigger and bigger satellites. There was some reluctance to this concept from the space technology people but we eventually persuaded INTELSAT to establish a telecommunications planning committee to advise INTELSAT on future requirements.
Graham was appointed as the inaugural Chairman of this planning committee and, with the first series of INTELSAT satellites (INTELSAT VII) being designed to these criteria, this opened up a new era for satellite communications planning and development. With satellite technology and economics firmly established, Australia turned its attention to the possibility of having a satellite system to cover the vast expanses of the outback. In due course a task force was appointed to report to the government on a domestic satellite communication system.
OTC General Manager Harold White was given leave for twelve months to head up this task force. Two important additional members appointed from OTC to the task force were Graham Gosewinckel and Dick Johnson.
To cut this story short as it departs from international communications, the Government adopted the recommendation to establish a national satellite telecommunications system to be known as Aussat. Graham was appointed as the first Chief Executive of Aussat, a position he served with distinction, gaining the award of AO.
He retired from this position and settled in a property in Avoca.
He was 83 years old when he died.
May He Rest In Peace
Below is a photo of him fromn the FEbruary 1981 edition of Transit
Courtesy of Alan Brand here’s a photo of Graham Gosewinckel taken at an INTELSAT Board of Governors meeting in Hawaii in 1974 with other INTELSAT delegates including OTC’s Frank Stanton.
From the National Library in Canberra. Gordon Pike used it as part of a powerpoint presentation that he kept of the entire history of the Aussat/Optus satellite system from 1982 up until when he retired in 2009. The A series satellite model in the background is currently on display at the Optus earth station at Belrose.
Graham and Diana at the 20th anniversary of the first Aussat satellite launch in 2005. Dick Johnson, Gordon Pike and many others organised this. It was a great night at the Cromer Golf Club.
Courtesy of Gus Berzins below is a photo of a lunch at “The Summit” on the 3rd July 1975 in connection with the 2nd Meeting of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Council, Specialist Group on System Development.
On the left: Richard Fong (Singapore), Graham Gosewinckel, Graham’s secretary name?, Tony Slade (Cable & Wireless). On the right: Guntis (Gus) Berzins and wife Laima.
The names of the other participants have faded from my memory.
I trust the celebration of Graham’s life brings back many shared memories of
his extensive contribution to that great organisation which was OTC, as well
as to Aussat.
From Phil Dickson, grandson of Vince Sim:
I’ve stumbled across your wonderful site because I’m researching the family tree, and hence trying to get more background on what my grandfather actually did for a crust. The family all knows he worked at OTC but no one can put their finger on exactly what he did.
My grandfather, or Pop as he was so well known, was Vince Sim, who sadly passed away in 2002 at 92 years of age. I have great memories of the staff houses at Doonside, the tennis court, the parties, fooling around down at the creek etc which is why it’s been good to stumble on this site full of great photos and anecdotes.
So if any of your visitors could shed some technical light on what Vince actually did at OTC (I know he was at Pennant Hills and moved out to Doonside) it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Phil Dickson
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