Comments on: Buzz Aldrin in Carnarvon

By: Quentin Hall

Quentin Hall — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 10:46:07 +0000

Can anyone remember when the Gemini space capsule was placed out the front of the Perth Town Hall – probably between 1966-68 – probably August or September (school holidays).

I’ve looked on the Internet, asked the Perth City Council archives (I talked to someone WAY TOO YOUNG to remember).

It’s been a challenge but it came to Perth.

Was it on the TVW news? West Australian Newspaper? If I knew “about when” I could hunt the archives.

Quentin Hall (Tom Hall’s son – ex-TWV7)

By: Murray

Murray — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 06:40:07 +0000

I hope to make it over to WA next year and I will spend a night
in Carvarvon and go to the museum. I have been to Esperance and
seen the Spacelab bits.

Thanks Murray Hely Christchurch New Zealand

By: Peter Croft

Peter Croft — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 06:09:46 +0000

Great article Ken. I was rostered on a B shift that day – a 10:30am start. I lived in South Perth then and was glued to the TV. Groan! At 10am seemed as if it was about to happen. Do I stay and be late for work in order to catch it, or make a dash (across the Narrows bridge and up Charles St, no freeway then!) to get to work.

I dashed and made it to work at 10:30 on time, and caught the first step off the ladder at work. I’ve never forgotten it. What a pity the picture quality was so poor is all.

By: ken

ken — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 13:06:45 +0000

Former TVW Managing Director and Sales Manager Grey Byrne kindly related the following account of the Moon landing telecast…

By way of some anecdotal memories

The telecast of the lunar module landing was about 11a.m. Perth time

The telecast was sponsored by Mazzucchellis the Jewellers

I remember that at 7.00 p.m. the Walk on the Moon was scheduled to happen but the astronauts were taking their time

The switchboard received many calls – a lot of them quite abusive saying things like ” where is this Walk on the Moon ? Typical Channel 7 can’t ever get anything right ! ( trying to explain the telecast was coming from the Moon was to no avail with some viewers) and others saying why do we have to watch this – where is our regular program ? ( I think it was I love Lucy )

cheers

Greg Byrne

Greg’s story is told at: http://watvhistory.com/2009/04/greg-byrne/

By: Bill MEACHAM

Bill MEACHAM — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 05:15:39 +0000

Excellent work Ken putting this together, Darcy you still look good on camera. Bill Meacham ex TVW7

By: Geoff Stewart

Geoff Stewart — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 13:26:43 +0000

Fantastic report Ken. I was lucky enough to attend the weekend’s events in Carnarvon and meet Buzz, what a man. Congratulations to Phil on a very successful event. Your dream is coming true.

I had the opportunity to talk to a number of the “Trackers” as they are known and they had similar stories to tell about technical problems they experienced and how they solved them or did work arounds to get the job done, not unlike some of the technical problems that engineering and operational staff at 2, 7 and 9 were dealing with in the early days of TV.

During a presentation to the VIP guests by Paul Dench (Carnarvon’s Station Manager) and Dr Alison Gregg (the North West Correspondent for the West Australian at the time), co-authors of the book “Carnarvon and Apollo – One giant leap for a small Australian town”, talked about the roll the ABC had in getting the moon landing TV pictures to Perth (as mentioned in Ken’s article above). Their book covers this event and also goes into great detail about the live broadcast to the BBC in November 1966 (cover previously on this web site).

It also makes mention of the work done by the ABC during the Apollo 13 mission where TV pictures of the damage to the service module were to be sent to Carnarvon and on to NASA via ABC links at the tracking station and the OTC site. This didn’t happen as the power needed to send TV pictures was not available in the remaining batteries onboard Odyssey. What was interesting to learn was, when Odyssey was powered up and data started to arrive at Carnarvon, mission control realised that they were still 2 amps over budget (they would not make it home alive). It was the team at CRO (the call sign for the Carnarvon Tracking Station) that looked at all the telemetry data and found two backup gyros still running, these were switched off and the current load dropped to the desired safe operating load, and the rest is history.

I personally know two of the Trackers, one of them Barry Heald is ex BBC.

Geoff Stewart (TVW 1977-2004, ABC 2004-2005)