ZLW Anniversary Backgrounder

Jim D has added his personal experience at the end of this backgrounder.
In 1936 it was arranged that instead of establishing a special Naval Station in N Z for the conduct of its overseas communications, the Navy department would make use of the Wellington Radio Station which was to be reinforced as required in regard to technical resources. Accordingly, at the outbreak of war, the Post Office Engineering Department provided and maintained the equipment at Wellington Radio for all the main Naval radio services conducted from this country for which an annual payment of $5,000.00 was received. The traffic handling was performed by Naval personnel billeted at ZLW. At the time, four of ZLW’s radio transmitters were used exclusively by Navy. By 1940, the Naval services and traffic staff had significantly increased, necessitating additional receiving, transmitting and associated equipment. By 1942, seven hand-speed transmitters were used exclusively by Navy, together with the part-time use of one transmitter for high-speed working. At this period a large amount of navel traffic was received and transmitted direct to and from Admiralty.
Other navel services conducted from Wellington radio were with Honolulu, Suva, Colombo, Belconnen, Esquimault, Singapore, Falkland Islands, Aden and shipping in the Tasman, South Atlantic and South Pacific areas. From 1942 – 43 the Navel staff attached to Wellington radio varied between 40 and 50 telegraphists. The transmitters and receivers ran 24/7 except for brief periods which were insisted on for routine maintenance. It is emphasised that Wellington Naval Radio Telegraph station was one of the most important in the Southern Hemisphere and was often called upon to relay traffic from Admiralty to Belconnen. It is understood that more traffic was handled at this station than at any other Naval station in the Southern hemisphere. Throughout this period the radio equipment functioned very well notwithstanding the heavy load placed upon it and it’s maintenance staff.
As the war proceeded, it became apparent that the increasing naval staff together with the additional receiving equipment could not be accommodated at Wellington Radio owing to lack of space and interference from congestion of services. Arrangements were made to reopen the Mt Crawford receiving station where Navy carried out a portion of their continuously manned main interception watches using four specially modified panoramic adapted receivers.
On 1st June 1944 Navy left Wellington radio for their new station at Waiouru. During the war period the Post Office’s mechanician staff attached to Wellington radio increased from 4 to 10 officers. At Awarua radio, the navel interception watches and the reception of high speed Morse from Admiralty was at Navy’s request, provided and operated by Post Office personnel. The scope of the interception service was so great numerous receivers and a staff of 40 operators were necessary.
Army Services also conducted from Wellington Radio
During October, 1942, Army Headquarters requested the Post Office to provide from Wellington Radio a hand-speed Morse service using a 1KW radio transmitter. This was provided with a keying line to Army HQ, W/T operating room in Stout Street, Wellington. However, owing to the heavy demands upon all existing radio equipment, for the first three months only part time use of this transmitter could be arranged. Subsequently, a new 1KW transmitter [89] became available and was allotted exclusively for Army use. This service, which was primarily with Noumea, ended in October 1944.
United States Office of War Information Press Service
From 1943 to 1944 the Post Office provided equipment and accommodation at Wellington Radio for a United States Marine radio telegraphist for the reception of Office of War Information Press for overseas United States forces.
Special Services for Naval Intelligence
At the outbreak of war, the only direction finding facilities in New Zealand were those installed and operated by the Post Office on behalf of the Civil Aviation branch of the Air Department. It was quickly recognised that valuable information could be obtained by radio direction finding for the assistance of the Naval authorities. At their request, special services were instituted; these embraced both high-frequency long-distance, direction finding and a service on medium-frequencies for the shorter distances. With the agreement of the Air Department comprehensive trials were conducted and consequently a special high-frequency direction finder was installed and operated at Waipapakauri on behalf of the Navy. The high-frequency service was mainly concerned with observations of enemy stations while the medium-frequency service was concerned with distress calls from ships in the South Pacific area. Special landlines were established to permit immediate collaboration between operators and widely separated high-frequency direction finding stations, eg between Awarua, Auckland, Waipapakauri and Suva, Fiji where an additional high-frequency direction finder was installed and operated by Navy. This enabled simultaneous bearings to be taken from these four station.
—o—
Another transmitter in use at ZLW had it’s own callsign ZLT. Who or what was it for?
Thanks Pete S for the backgrounder.
Jim D has added some further information on ZLW from a personal perspective.  Thanks Jim
As a follow on from the ZLW story, my career started as a telegraph boy in the Wellington International Telegraph Office during the school holidays. In 1963 I attended the Radio Telegraphists schools at Trentham and passed out in September of that year. I was initially sent to ZLW coastal radio station on Tinakori Hill but ended up at the Chief Post Office in Stout Street, Wellington, working as a telegraphist in the International Telegraph Office. Whilst I had been at the school, the ITO had shifted from a small office next to the Telegraph Office on the left hand side of the first floor and had taken over the whole of the right hand side on the same floor. The first office to the left of new ITO was the Radio facsimile room where news pictures from overseas were received and an operator’s facility for receiving the news item that went with them by CW. The main office had CW bays for operating with the Islands and HF RATT bays for Papeete and I think San Francisco (could be wrong there). We also had cable RATT circuits to Sydney, Suva and Melbourne.

 Peter Hart and yours truly at Tinakori Hill

CW Circuits were normally operated at 25WPM and each operator had a control module for selecting transmitters and receivers (from Himitangi and Makara respectively), an Imperial 66 typewriter and a hand morse key. The CW circuits were as follows:

ZLC Chatham Islands
ZLK Scott Base
ZKN Nuie
ZKR Rarotonga
ZKF Fakaofa, Tokelaus
5WA Apia
Can’t remember if Tonga was one of them or not.
Messages were pre-taped and the prosign VE was given three times with a suitable interval between each one before the next telegram started. During that time you had to sign off the previous telegram, take it out, put in three telegram forms with two carbons in between, scratch your bum and get ready for the next CT….Telegrams from the Islands were invariably in foreign language or money order format with no collation at the end. Good training for Pussers. Had enough of sitting in the same office so I decided to serve Queen and country and pledged my allegiance in May 1964.