Waiouru's Radio Station Circles World

Chronicle (Levin), 30 December 1949, Page 3

Waiouru's Radio Station Circles World

AUCKLAND, Dec. 28. Waiouru's long-range naval radio station has cireled the world tens of thousands of times in the last few days to handle a flood of messages between ships on all the seven seas and . the countries which border them. Linked in a chain of Commonwealth wireless, the station has coped with a Christmas rush that has meant an average of 10,000 or 12,000 groups of Morse each day. A similar volumq of trafiic is expected over the New Year. No. Christmas Leave There has been no Christmas leave for Waiouru's 80 telegraphists. With the Awarua radio station, they have kept in eonstant communication with merchant ships in the expanse of Pacific between Panama and Cape Horn. They have handled a substantial share of the eommercial radiograms exchanged between New Zealand and overseas countries. They have piayed a prominent part in maintaining the international radio network that iinks Waiouru direetly with London, Canada, Australia and Honolulu. High-speed morse produced by modern mechanieal aids has relayed messages from ships to London and other world centres. Diamond-shaped, directional aerials on the 2600ft Waiouru plateau have beamed the radio impuLses to targets 10,000 miles away. A spiit seeond after a Waiouru operator taps a keyboard, the message flows from ultra-modern teietype machines at Whitehall, in the heart of London. The text can travel at 60 words a minute. Course of Messages The volume of Christmas and New Year trafiic makea the ronteing of signals an art in itself. A passenger in a ship at sea between Panama and New Zealand may wish to send greetings to a friend in West Afriea. It is sent from a hand-key in the vessei's radio room and received by Waiouru. Soon afterward it is flaahed to London by teietype, Whitehall' relays it to the British Post Office, and the remainder of a journey to Nigeria or the Gold Coast may be accomplished by eable. The whole operation , oceupys only a few hours. Waiouru's transmitters aud receivers were established in 1942, when the station commeneed its wartime role as the Navy's direct link with London, Canada, Bombay, East Africa, Australia, French possessions and the United States. It later became the clearing house for the administrative signals of the British Pacific Fleet and when the war was over, its funetions were extended to handle eommercial and shipping signals.