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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 N630, March 21, 2021

Kermadec Earthquake

In our program today, we interrupt our regular flow of topics here in Wavescan in order to present instead a topic on the radio scene in the Kemadec Islands, that recently underwent a quick series of massive earthquakes, one of which was measured at 8.1 on the Richter Scale. According to the United States Geological Survey, the most intense earthquake in modern times was measured at 9.5.

On Friday, March 5 (2021), the strongest of three major earthquakes in the Kermadec area was centered underwater near the island chain which is located in the South Pacific half way between New Zealand and Fiji. The first two earthquakes in this series were measured at 7.3 and 7.4, and the third and largest at 8.1 struck the same area just before 8:30 am on the Friday morning.

Initially, a warning of possible tsunamis was issued for many Pacific countries, though these were later cancelled due to the fact that all three of the closely timed major earthquakes were deep under water. The Kermadec Islands were shaken, though with very little damage. On the exposed areas of the North Island of New Zealand, seaside citizens fled to higher ground, though the arrival of a small tsunami caused virtually no damage there either.

According to the United States Geological Survey, the world's most intense earthquake, measured at 9.5, struck the Pacific Coast of Chile in South America in 1960. In a comment from Professor Jennifer Eccles at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, she stated that the 8.1 event near the Kermadec Islands was just about "as big as it gets".

There are four major islands in the Kermadec Islands, together with half a dozen islets and exposed rocks, all of which form a lengthy arc of volcanic underwater mountains. In 2012, an underwater volcanic eruption produced a new small island in the Kermadecs now identified as Havre, together with a large raft of floating pumice stone that caught the attention of scientists around the world.

The largest and only inhabited island in the Kermadecs is the irregularly shaped Raoul Island, which measures 5 miles by 4 miles. However, the only people on this island these days are a small cluster of official personnel, anywhere up to a dozen or so, who are engaged in nature conservation, together with weather and radio officers.

In ancient times, the Kermadec Islands were settled on occasionally by Polynesian peoples, and at times by a few scattered Europeans. During World War I, a German raider ship, the Wolf, used Raoul Island as a temporary base for repair and overhaul. Politically, these empty islands form an integral part of New Zealand itself.

In May 1937, a party of survey personnel aboard the New Zealand government ship Maui Pomare visited Raoul Island for the purpose of establishing what they called an Aeradio Station, for aviation and navigation across the Pacific. The property of a loner, Mr. Alfred Bacon, was confiscated for the new radio station, though with due compensation, and Bacon himself returned to New Zealand on the same ship, the Maui Pomare.

A low powered Morse Code station was installed on Raoul Island, and it was first noted in the United States around August 1938. The callsign was ZME, and the shortwave operating channel at that time was at the top end of the 40 metre amateur/broadcasting band.

This new communication station was sometimes referred to under the callsign ZME, and sometimes as ZMEF, both of which we would presume were accurate. We would suggest that ZME was the basic licensed callsign for the station, and that ZMEF indicated the particular shortwave channel in regular usage (9520 kHz).

Station ZME was taken into regular service during the early part of the following year 1939, and many DX reports in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States indicate that the station was indeed on the air. However, many of those monitoring reports in various radio magazines back in the middle of the last century were copycat reports from other contemporary radio magazines.

Station ZMEF sent weather reports and local information four times daily back to New Zealand, generally to station ZLD in Auckland. Originally, this station, on an isolated and lonely island, was also intended to form part of the radio communication network across the Pacific for the new Pan American Airways (PanAm), but World War II ended that project.

A contemporary monitoring report in the NZDXRA magazine Tune-In back then indicated that ZME changed from Morse Code operation to voice communication early in the year 1940. During the Pacific War this station also served with the New Zealand version of the Coast Watch Service. The main operating channel back then was 500 kHz.

Station ZME is still in regular communication service to this day. Several of the meteorological and radio personnel stationed on Raoul Island have themselves been amateur radio operators. In addition, there have been a few amateur radio DXpeditions to Raoul Island, such as ZL1ABZ in 1958, ZL8RI in 1996, and ZL8R in 2006.


Australian Shortwave Callsign VLU

During the past one hundred years and more, the Australian shortwave callsign VLU has been in use at six different radio locations in four different countries of the South Pacific. Our story regarding callsign VLU begins with a ship that sailed, or more accurately steamed, under the flag of New Zealand.

The good ship Atua was a small refrigerated cargo ship with passenger accommodation that was built by the Dunlop company in Glasgow, Scotland in 1906. The new owners were the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, and the ship was taken into inter-island service for cargo and passenger conveyance in the South Pacific.

The Morse Code wireless callsign VLU was accorded to the Atua in the era before World War I, and it was in use for a period of more than ten years. In 1924, the ship Atua was laid up, and two years later again, it was sold and renamed the Rashid.

The callsign VLU was applied next to a small AWA communication station that was installed at Lae on the northwest coast of the island of New Guinea in 1933. This callsign VLU gave way to a subsequent Australian administered callsign VHX in 1937.

Back then, Lae was the gateway to the inland gold field areas and it was Guinea Airways that needed the aviation radio station for company communications. The famous American aviatrix Amelia Earhart flew out from Lae, over the Pacific, in 1937, never to be seen again.

From New Zealand and New Guinea, we cross over now to Australia where the Donald Mackay Expedition set out by plane to explore the vast desert areas in the center of the continent, in that same year, 1937. The Sterling Radio Company in Sydney was set up by the well-known amateur radio operator Donald Knock, VK2NO, who designed and constructed a special radio transmitter and receiver for the expeditionary party.

The Sterling radio station was licensed for communication and broadcast transmissions under the callsign VLU, and it was permitted to make amateur contacts under the Don Knock's South Australian callsign VK5NO. This radio apparatus contained 7 valves (tubes) and it radiated 30 watts in Morse Code and 10 watts in voice.

This historic radio equipment was refurbished 70 years later, and it was displayed to the public at the Central Coast Field Day in Wyong on February 18, 2007. In April of the following year (2008), the radio was donated to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney where it is now on permanent display.

During the war years in the middle of last century, the VLU callsign was in use by the large AWA shortwave station at Pennants Hills, near Sydney in Australia. The Pennant Hills radio station contained half a dozen shortwave transmitters, several of which were rated at 10 kW, quite high power for those days. When Pennant Hills was in communication with New Guinea, the registered callsign was VLU, regardless of which transmitter was in use.

Station VLU Sydney was heard in Australia, New Zealand and the United States under several subsidiary callsigns during the years running from 1941 to 1944, including for example:

The basic callsign VLU was registered for use on 16350 kHz.

Now we go out west of Australia to Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. This island is noted for its spectacular annual migration of red crabs, numbering several million, and they move in massive waves from the mountain side to the ocean.

In 1965, the Telecommunication Engineer at the communication station VLU on Christmas Island, Don Reid, began the part time usage of their electronic equipment for the broadcast of radio programming. Two years later, a Broadcast Officer was appointed and the informal station was officially opened as a radio broadcasting station on September 1 (1967), under the appropriate callsign VLU2.

The mediumwave broadcasting station VLU2 on 1420 kHz was notoriously impossible to hear at any of the land locations in Asia that face the open Indian Ocean towards Christmas Island. However, station VLU2 does provide a good strong signal every evening around sunset along the coast of Western Australia. These days the station callsign is 6ABCRN, with 500 watts on 1422 kHz.

Our final occasion for the usage of the Australian shortwave callsign VLU occurred at the Darwin relay station of Radio Australia during the years 1996 and 1997. At the time, their so-called temporary relay station at Carnarvon in Western Australia was under closure.

The intent was to remove the 300 kW Thomson shortwave transmitter VLK at Carnarvon and re-install it in the Darwin shortwave station under the callsign VLU. During that two year time period, the Radio Australia Operational Schedules listed the VLK-VLU transmitter at Darwin "to be installed". Yes, it was on location, but it was never taken into service.

On the next occasion when we investigate the Australian Shortwave Callsigns, we will move sequentially down the English alphabet to callsign VLV.