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Geelong Amateur Radio Club To Activate Historic Site
Date :
01 /
08 /
2014
Author :
Robert Broomhead - VK3DN
At the invitation of the First Shot Organising Committee the Geelong Amateur Radio Club Inc’ were invited to establish a radio station within the Fort Queenscliff precinct in recognition of the role played by terrestrial and wireless telegraphy during WW1.
The Commemoration and Memorial Service will take place in the Fort at 10.30 am on Tuesday 5th August, 100years to the hour when a shot was fired across the bow of the German merchant ship SS Pfalz, to stop the ship from leaving Port Phillip Bay.
The Federal Department of Veteran Affairs and the Australian Communications and Media Authority have granted the Geelong Amateur Radio Club, through the Wireless Institute of Australia, authorisation to use a special event callsign VI3ANZAC. The first allocation of a callsign representing the ANZAC Centennial Commemoration.
Communication by wireless telegraphy, the transmission of messages by Morse Code, from this historic site is particularly significant, as it was in the vicinity of this location that the first Shore to Ship transmission in the Southern Hemisphere occurred on 5th May 1901, when Henry Walter Jenvey sent a message to the ship Ophir carrying the Duke and Duchess of York and Cornwell, for the opening of the first Federal Parliament.
On the 12 July 1906 the first wireless transmission from the Australian mainland to Devonport was carried out by the Marconi Company, in the presence of the Governor General, Prime Minister Deakin and many other dignitaries.
Additional information from
Barry Abley (VK3SY) 0438290718
Jenni Blasco (VK3FJEN) 52511909
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