First Australia-US QSO took place 80 years ago

October 29, 2004 -- The Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA) notes that the first direct two-way radio communication between Australia and the US occurred 80 years ago on November 3, 1924.

Walter Francis Maxwell "Max" Howden, A3BQ (later VK3BQ), contacted William L. Williams, U6AHP, of Pomona, California, using Morse code. (A 1924 US Department of Commerce call book indicates Williams could run up to 300 W.) The contact took place in the vicinity of the current 80-meter band. Located near Melbourne, A3BQ ran 130 W using a single-tube transmitter.

His antenna consisted of six wires, 65 feet long and 80 feet in the air. "The first transpacific QSO was a very significant achievement at a time when radio amateurs were seeking to prove that long-distance communication was possible on short wavelengths that governments had considered to be useless," said the WIA's Jim Linton, VK3PC. Nine days later, Howden achieved the first Australia-to-Great Britain two-way wireless telegraphy contact by working E. J. Simmonds, G2OD, in Buckingham, England.

The following February, A3BQ again worked G2OD for the first two-way Amateur Radio phone contact between Australia and the UK--another world first. "The efforts of the late Max Howden, VK3BQ, and many other pioneering radio amateurs of that era, both the southern and northern hemispheres, significantly added to the knowledge of communications." Linton remarked. "It led to the rapid development of radio in terms of inter-continental and global communications and opened up the short waves for broadcasting, international wireless telegraph and many other uses over long distances."

A January 1925 QST article reporting various successful contacts with Australia and elsewhere proclaimed, "the day of true international Amateur Radio is here." It also noted that A3BQ had sent greetings to ARRL via U1SF in Connecticut.

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