Wireless Hill is a steep-sided hill with a summit plateau that takes up most of the North Head promontory at the northern end of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

’s subantarctic Macquarie Island, lying in the Southern Ocean about halfway between Australia and Antarctica. Its highest point is about 100 m above sea level and it is joined to the main body of the island by a low and narrow isthmus that is occasionally wave-washed in heavy storms. Macquarie Island Station, operated by the Australian Antarctic Division and the only permanently populated place on the island, lies at the northern end of the isthmus at the foot of Wireless Hill. The hill is so named because it was the site of an early wireless telegraphy relay station, part of the first radio link to Antarctica.

Wireless Hill radio station

Headed by meteorologist

George Ainsworth George Frederick Ainsworth (20 June 1878 – 11 October 1950) was an Australian meteorologist, public servant and businessman who headed one of the component parts of the Australasian Antarctic expedition of 1911–1914. Early years Ains ...

, the radio station was established as part of the 1911-1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition led by Douglas Mawson in order to provide a radio link between the expedition’s main Antarctic base at

Cape Denison Cape Denison is a rocky point at the head of Commonwealth Bay in George V Land, Antarctica. It was discovered in 1912 by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911–14) under Douglas Mawson, who named it for Sir Hugh Denison of Sydney, a pa ...

Commonwealth Bay Commonwealth Bay is an open bay about 48 km (30 mi) wide at the entrance between Point Alden and Cape Gray in Antarctica. It was discovered in 1912 by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition under Douglas Mawson, who established the main ...

, and

Hobart Hobart ( ; Nuennonne/Palawa kani: ''nipaluna'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Home to almost half of all Tasmanians, it is the least-populated Australian state capital city, and second-small ...

, Tasmania. It comprised a radio shack, an engine room and transmission masts erected at the top of the hill. The equipment used was German-made Telefunken 1.5 kW spark transmitters, with power for radio transmission coming from a De Dion-Bouton engine. The expedition telegraphists on Macquarie Island, Arthur Sawyer and Charles Sandell, used

morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...

operated on high frequency. The first transmission of the station was made to another receiver on the island on 17 January 1912. The first communication between the island and the outside world took place on 13 February 1912, with

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

radio and with shipping. The station subsequently sent daily weather reports to Wellington, New Zealand. Communication with Commonwealth Bay was finally established in April 1913. In 1913 control of the station was handed over to the Australian Meteorological Service, which continued to operate it until 1915 when meteorological observations were discontinued. The site and the equipment were then abandoned until 1948 when the

Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions The Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE ) is the historical name for the Australian Antarctic Program (AAp) administered for Australia by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD). History Australia has had a long involv ...

established a permanent presence on the island.

References

{{coord, 54, 29, 37, S, 158, 56, 28, E, display=title Macquarie Island Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration Australia and the Antarctic 1912 establishments in Australia 1915 disestablishments in Australia