A visit to VNG Lyndhurst 1986.

[kcdl]

I was the final person to ever make an announcement on VNG. My mother was the honorary secretary of the the VNG user consortium. I still have memories of playing hide and seek at the Christmas parties they used to have at the transmission station at Llandilo. I made the announcement while was in university. Memories.

[vk3ase]

Quite amazing the connections these videos produce. Is there a recording of the

last Llandilo announcement?.

[kcdl]

@vk3ase There is on a cassette, we really need to digitise it.

[marionleiba]

That's funny. I never heard about that before. I wonder if it was licensed.....I suppose it must have been. I thought all transmissions were meant to have an ID.

[marionleiba]

Sorry, I didn't notice your notes before - I hardly ever go on You Tube, so didn't know to look at those first! They were very interesting. The James Dibble reference was made by one of your viewers 3 months ago. It is in the comments below. VNG was terminated again on 1 January 2003.

[vk3ase]

@marionleiba

You are forgiven for not reading the notes. There was a "mystery" blank carrier that came from Lyndhurst

as well on exactly 2megs it never had any ID or modulation and was produced by an old army AT20 tx.

in a back room of the station. The story i heard, and it may be pure folk law was that it was set up for

propagation research conducted by a university. When the experiment finished no one told the station

so the carrier continued for years after.

[marionleiba]

The male announcer was Len Grice (not James Dibble). I think he worked for the ABC and died of cancer in the 1980s. I don't know the name of the female announcer. In Llandilo, Graham Conolly was the usual announcer, but I did the occasional special announcement so was the second female announcer on VNG. My son, Kenrick Leiba did the closing announcement for VNG at Llandilo. Thanks once again, MarionVK1BNG.

[vk3ase]

@marionleiba

Interesting to hear your association with the station, it was much more exciting

when it was on air. Who mentioned James Dibble?, if you read the notes about the video

i say quite a bit about Len Grice who was the "voice " of the station for as long as i can remember.

[marionleiba]

Thanks for the memories,VK3ASE. I was Honorary Secretary of the VNG Users Consortium, which was partly responsible for getting VNG resuscitated and moved to Llandilo. I visited the Lyndhurst site in January 1988 while the equipment was still there but the aerials had been taken down.

[avidutubewatcher]

Thanks for the post and the memories. I worked in a range of Commonwealth Government transmitter sites in the early 1980's and there was something really unique about these sites - they were well kept, organised and were staffed by very good people.

[avidutubewatcher]

Thanks for the post and the memories

[vk3xbb]

Hey Stu,

Is that Ralph and Nigel briefly in the shot? Don't know the girl

[vk3ase]

@vk3xbb

You are right

[internezzo]

you could eat your dinner off that lino - spotless!

[hercsie]

I also recall that before the VNG users group set the transmitter up at llandilo the Navy was transmitting time signals on around 8 MHz from the Belconnen transmitter site 1989/1990 timeframe - I used to live a couple of K's away from there. Big signal!

[hercsie]

Fantastic,

I also used to drive my folks batty with listening to this and resetting watches and clocks.

The male voice is James Dibble who used to read the news on ABC TV.

Thanks for posting!

[TheBarry1973]

i dont remember this 1 but i do remember the vng site at landilo just near richmond ,sydney,,,i use to gaze with amazement of the size of the log periodics and wells quadrants........awesome to see this sort of history is still around...well on videon at least...thanks vk3ase.....

[lumabi25]

I remember using the station often as a shortwave listener to set my clocks. Though I never heard a woman's voice on it.

I also remember it being started again in Llandilo on one or two unusual frequencies like 8.638MHz or something like that.

It was sad to see it go, even if if did "give you the pip" LOL

[ChemistInJapan]

That is indeed a bit depressing.  I remember when JJY ceased it's HF broadcast in 2001. I really wonder how much longer stations like WWV/H, CHU and BPM will be on the air.

Thanks for posting this somewhat sort of video.

[VictoriaTrainDebacle]

Thank you for bringing back fond memories of driving my parents nuts with a Mitsubishi portable transistor radio listening to the pips. I grew up in Springvale and easily received the signal, and can remember going past the site many times when going on holiday to Philip Island via the Sth Gippsland Highway. I still live in the general area and work near Lyndhurst. Sadly apart from this excellent clip the site and memories are fading. The area is now housing, swallowed in the urban sprawl.

[fritzski22]

Awesome clip! You know, I can imagine walking into the VNG facility and finding Pink Floyd working on an album.

I spent hours as a kid listening to the relentless VNG signals and transcribing the pips to dashes on paper to see if I could crack the code. A Turing- like genius probably would have done it but not me...

[okrustyone]

Same... Sadly, I can still recite the announcement word for word.

[matkovicha]

That is a little bit depressing.