The Bellenden Ker Television Project

Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy

Simon Moorhead Ericsson Australia and New Zealand

Abstract: Two historic papers from 1974/75 detailing the construction of the Bellenden Ker television broadcasting station in far north Queensland.

Keywords: history, telecommunications, broadcasting, Mt Bellenden Ker

Introduction

Flying into Cairns is a wonderful experience with the Bellenden Ker Range (part of the Great Divide) to the west, separating the narrow wet tropical coastal plains from the rolling Atherton Tablelands inland. This mountain range is the highest in Queensland with two peaks over 1,500 metres above sea level, namely Bartle Frere South Peak at 1,615 metres and Bellenden Ker Centre Peak at 1,582 metres.

The range is aligned in such a way as to intercept the prevailing south-easterly winds, resulting in the highest average rainfall in Australia. Mt Bellenden Ker has recorded an average of over eight metres of rain annually and a maximum annual rainfall of more than 12 metres (Lavarack, 2015).

If the weather is clear, you may catch a glimpse of the communications tower on Mt Bellenden Ker as you descend into Cairns. This is one of the most unique television broadcasting stations in Australia. For those of us who were lucky enough to work in broadcasting in the 1970’s, the station on Mt Bellenden Ker has an almost mythical status.

Purpose-built in the wettest place in Australia, capable of withstanding tropical cyclones with winds over 200 km per hour, it is fully remote controlled from Cairns (the first of its kind) and only accessible by helicopter or its own private aerial cableway, which rises 1,500 metres from the coastal plain over a run of 5km.

In the 1960’s, the Australian Government had a policy of providing television as widely as possible. The capital cities were provided with services in the first two stages of development. In the third stage, services were provided to 13 of the highly developed and populated country

Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, ISSN 2203-1693, Volume 8 Number 4 December 2020 Copyright © 2020 http://doi.org/10.18080/jtde.v8n4.368 159 Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy

areas and in the fourth stage a further 20 country areas were approved, including the Cairns region (Public Works, 1968).

By the mid 1960’s, television had been provided in all the approved areas with the exception of the Cairns region. Temporary national and commercial television stations were established in the city of Cairns and had been operational since 1966, but only served about 40,000 people in a limited area around the City of Cairns.

Complex problems in finding a site and providing access due to the rugged surrounding country had delayed the establishment of a permanent station. The decision to establish a permanent station on Mt Bellenden Ker with access provided by an aerial cableway was made in 1968. The permanent transmitters would then serve about 90,000 people on the coastal plain north of Cairns to Mossman, south to Tully, and west to the Atherton Tableland (ABCB, 1970).

Prior to construction, the proposed design was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for investigation and report on the construction of a television transmitting station at Mt Bellenden Ker, by resolution on 11 September 1968 of the House of Representatives (Public Works, 1968).

This investigation looked at several alternate ways for providing television coverage in the Cairns region and confirmed that Mt Bellenden Ker was the optimal site for the station. It also verified the support of the relevant government departments, given the preferred design necessitated the establishment of an aerial cableway through a national park with minimal environmental impact.

The first historic paper (Poulson, 1974) details the propagation surveys, site selection, access cableway, transmitter building and installation. The second historic paper (Poulson & Reed, 1975) details the television & radio equipment, remote control and operation.

The first historic paper eloquently describes the significant logistical challenges of establishing a television station on Mt Bellenden Ker and details below are taken directly from that paper.

All civil engineering work associated with the project was carried out by the Australian Government Department of Housing and Construction. This included the bottom station access road, the transmitter building and the aerial cableway itself. The actual construction work relied almost entirely on the use of helicopters for transporting men and material to all of the cableway tower sites and to the top station on the mountain.

All of the material for the aerial cableway and the transmitter building was carried in this way. In addition, the helicopters were used as “flying cranes” for a large proportion of the rigging work, and it is a tribute to the skill of the pilots and riggers that the work was completed

Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy

without any major accident. A total of some 2,000 flights were made during the course of construction, using up to three helicopters during the peak periods, and it is doubtful if the project could have been completed at all in any other way.

When the Austrian designed and manufactured aerial cableway was completed, it was subjected to inspection and test by the head of the Austrian Government Department responsible for licencing such installations in Europe and certified as to the safety and quality of construction.

As would be expected, the location and mode of access to the station led to some unique problems in the physical task of transporting all the required items to the site. The aerial cableway design had been based on a maximum net load of 1,000 kg, which was determined by the heaviest packed item of transmitting equipment and the heaviest items of a dismantled emergency engine alternator, these being the engine block and the alternator rotor.

This maximum load could only be carried by removing the construction car and slinging the load directly from the carriage hanger on the aerial cableway. An auxiliary carriage and hanger were necessary for long items such as tower leg members. Operation in this manner was time- consuming because of the difficulties involved in lifting and slinging the load at the bottom station and then removing it at the top, and was restricted to the large tower members and large heavy crates, which could not be fitted into the construction car.

A number of mechanical aids were essential throughout the transportation period. These included a mobile crane at the bottom station, hydraulic scissor lift tables at both stations, and a front-end loader used as a 1000 kg mobile crane at the top station. This loader was itself taken to the top in stripped-down form and reassembled on site by a motor mechanic.

Despite the logistic difficulties of material transport, all installation work, including the microwave links, transmitting tower and antenna and transmitters themselves, were completed in time to allow half power operation by Christmas 1972, less than eight months after the aerial cableway was made available to the broadcast installation team. Full power operation was not commenced until February 1973 after the existing channel diplexer for the temporary service had been shifted from Cairns to Mt Bellenden Ker and re-installed there.

The extreme design and construction challenges of this remote and wet location are the reasons why the television broadcasting station on Mt Bellenden Ker in far north Queensland has taken on an almost mythical status amongst broadcasters in Australia. It is my pleasure to provide the two historic papers below.

Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy

References

ABCB [Australian Broadcasting Control Board]. (1970). Provision of Permanent Television Service, Cairns Area, pp. 101-102 in Australian Broadcasting Control Board, Twenty- Third Annual Report For Year 1970-71. Available at https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/publications/tabledpapers/HPP032 016009519_1/upload_pdf/HPP032016009519_1.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#s earch=%22publications/tabledpapers/HPP032016009519_1%22 Lavarack, P. S. (2015). Early exploration of the Bellenden Ker Range, Queensland History Journal, 22(8), 577-593, February. The Royal Historical Society of Queensland. Available at https://docplayer.net/57881532-Queensland-history-journal-of- queensland-february-2015-vol-22-no-8.html Poulson, A. B. (1974) The Bellenden-Ker Television Project — Part 1, Telecommunications Journal of Australia, 24(3), 276-287. Poulson, A. B., & Reed, P. J. (1975) The Bellenden Ker Television Project (Part 2), Telecommunications Journal of Australia, 25(1), 48-52. Public Works, Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on. (1968). Report relating to the proposed construction of a Television Transmitting Station at Mount Bellenden Ker Cairns, Queensland. Available at https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_ Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=reports/1968/1 968_pp177.pdf

Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy

The Historic Papers

Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy