Television Station GTV9 Melbourne Australia

Tom O'Donohue, Rod Biddle, and Les Faudell circa 1963.

Tom O'Donohue and Pete Smith, January 2024

IMT 1965

From Alan Foot

Hi (!) guys, Two silent 8mm films for your delectation: Remember when Nine covered the 5th(?) Test in Adelaide 1962? With only the recently installed Sydney Melbourne coaxial link and before the days of interstate links Nine set up a circling DC3(?) over Nhill and several mountain top link sites using OB link equipment, bringing this Test live to the Eastern states. Another of those ambitious projects which gave Nine their reputation for innovation. Using Channel 2 Adelaide vision Jack Vertigan and I made the trip to Adelaide to set up the audio, with Tony Charlton and Bill Jacobs as commentators. But on our Sunday off we drove up to NWS9s transmitter site and got their permission to climb the mast! (No health and safety issues then!). Anyway this shaky 8mm film is the result, young Alan cracking hardy and Jack scampering up the mast like a 2 year old!. You can see quite plainly that I preferred audio! However we had a great time nearly getting blown off and being aware of the movement and ominous clanking of steel work, as well as the diminishing area as we climbed higher.
The other film covers the send off a few of the lads gave Peter Dare, Bruce Withey, and possibly Ken Clay on the Canberra in 1964(?), not sure if they were the others on deck with them. On the pier are Bob Henson and John Pratt with rolls of Ampex tape streamers, Mac Andrews, Peter Chaffey(?) and unknown others while muggins wound up the clockwork camera every 30 seconds.Amazing that John P didn't let go! VT flying high till the tug cut through! Note the guy at the mast on the ships bow, is he trying to remove a VT streamer bit from the flagpole! And so they sailed away to begin fantastic experiences overseas.
Alan Foot