A visit to VNG Lyndhurst 1986.

A visit to the VNG transmission station before it was closed. The Lyndhurst site near Melbourne carried
the ABC SW domestic program VLH and VLR beamed to North Australia, but was most famous for the time
signal service VNG. The last part of the film has the audio
of the actual last pip and then the carrier is switched off.
After the service was terminated it was discovered that many people still needed a time station in this part of the world. A new station was set up at Llandilo near Sydney,
the original frequencies had been relocated so they had
to use the same ones as WWV a silly idea as far as i am
concerned. The new service carried on till the early 2000's
when GPS methods made it redundant..
The Announcer was Len Grice an ABC staff announcer who read the main morning news service during the 70's. He did leave once to start a pineappel farm in Queansland
but came back to Auntie again. The last few weeks had
an as yet unknown woman announcing the demise of the
service.
Two 10kw transmitters broadcast 3LO and 3AR from
Melbourne to the inland and islands on shortwave . People in the outback the tropical north and the pacific
had to listen to local radio from melbourne thousands of miles away. It had it good points if you went overseas you could keep up with events from your home town, before the internet this was very good. I listened once from the Grand canyon.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• vng
• time
• transmission
• short
• wave
• dx

[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?.

[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.

[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.