First Australia-US QSO
took place 80 years ago
October 29, 2004 -- The
Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA) notes that the first direct two-way radio
communication between Australia
and the US
occurred 80 years ago on November 3, 1924.
Walter Francis Maxwell "Max"
Howden, A3BQ (later VK3BQ), contacted William L.
Williams, U6AHP, of Pomona, California,
using Morse code. (A 1924 US Department of Commerce call book indicates
Williams could run up to 300 W.) The contact took place in the vicinity
of the current 80-meter band. Located near Melbourne, A3BQ ran 130 W using a single-tube
transmitter.
His antenna consisted of six
wires, 65 feet long and 80 feet in the air. "The first transpacific QSO was a
very significant achievement at a time when radio amateurs were seeking to
prove that long-distance communication was possible on short wavelengths that
governments had considered to be useless," said the WIA's
Jim Linton, VK3PC. Nine days later, Howden achieved
the first Australia-to-Great
Britain two-way wireless
telegraphy contact by working E. J. Simmonds, G2OD,
in Buckingham, England.
The following February, A3BQ
again worked G2OD for the first two-way Amateur Radio phone contact between Australia and the UK--another world first. "The
efforts of the late Max Howden, VK3BQ, and many other
pioneering radio amateurs of that era, both the southern and northern
hemispheres, significantly added to the knowledge of communications." Linton
remarked. "It led to the rapid development of radio in terms of
inter-continental and global communications and opened up the short waves for
broadcasting, international wireless telegraph and many other uses over long
distances."
A January 1925 QST
article reporting various successful contacts with Australia and elsewhere proclaimed,
"the day of true international Amateur Radio is
here." It also noted that A3BQ had sent greetings to ARRL via U1SF in Connecticut.
Page last modified: 04:05 PM, 29 Oct 2004 ET
Page author: awextra@arrl.org
Copyright © 2004, American Radio Relay League, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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