Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2013L01343:front:0:p32
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2013L01343
Segment Type: other
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Character Range: 81216–83876

carried more than ten still cameras and one cine camera, recording 2500 images (many of these on glass plates and some in colour) and hundreds of metres of cine film in the first year. His images are a comprehensive visual record of the Antarctic landscape, the expeditioners, their dogs and expedition activities (Godden Mackay Logan 2001).

Hurley's images of the AAE are held by the Mawson Collection in Adelaide, the Barr Smith Library, the State Library of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Library of Australia, the National Film and Sound Archive, the National Archives of Australia and the AAD.

Wireless communication

The AAE set up a wireless relay station and scientific base on Macquarie Island on their way south. Wireless masts, a receiving hut and an engine house were erected at the summit of a 45 m hill, now known as Wireless Hill. It was intended to be a lifeline between the ice and the Australian-based wireless station at the Queen's Domain in Tasmania. The base at Macquarie Island was only established at the 'last minute' when it was realised that Antarctica was too far away to transmit without a relay station. As noted by Godden Mackay Logan (2001):

    The establishment of radio communications and the installation of the necessary equipment at the Main Base at Cape Denison was not an easy task. Two radio masts were erected by late August 1912, and a temporary aerial enabled messages to be sent to Macquarie Island by 25 September 1912, until one of the masts was broken by wind in October. The wireless operator was based in the workshop, and later in the living section of the Main Hut where warmer and drier conditions improved the operation of the equipment. The reconstructed apparatus successfully sent messages but was not able to receive them. Two-way communication resumed in February 1913.

In May 1913, following strong gusts that broke the top and middle section of the main wireless mast, Bage and Bickerton made a kite to fly the radio aerial. A Venesta-box kite was used and successfully flew briefly but after several crashes the kite was no longer capable of flying. This may have been the first time a kite was flown in Antarctica.

When Mawson visited Macquarie Island with BANZARE two decades on, the accommodation hut was standing but in a poor state, and on Wireless Hill the masts were down and the engine house was unroofed, but the transmission house (wireless hut) was intact. Some fabric remains on Wireless Hill, including remnants of the flying fox. Two generators recovered in the early 1960s are now in custody of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. The base of