76th Anniversary of VK9MI

To all readers,

This story is about about the history and evolution of Australia's only shipboard commercial shortwave broadcasting station, VK9MI, which operated from the passenger liner  the MS Kanimbla, in the period 1936 to 1939.

The ship was launched in April 1936. 

The station was closed down by the Australian Government in 1939.

The Kanimbla was used in the war years as HMS Kanimbla and HMAS Kanimbla, and later refitted in 1950 and refitted by a Japanese company as the TSMV Oriental Queen as a cruise liner in the Pacific, until its last voyage in 1973 prior to being sold for scrap in Taiwan.

The full article will be published in my forthcoming on-line project "The History of Shortwave Broadcasting in Australia" 

Bob Padula

Melbourne