Sept. 24, 2010

Volunteers Help Raise High-Gain Antenna at Australia Site

Source: HCJB Global (written by Ralph Kurtenbach)

A curtain rises in the outback of Australia, bringing to radio listeners across many nations an invitation to hear a message of one God, one Savior and one gospel-the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The curtain antennas used by shortwave radio broadcasters such as HCJB Global-Australia are less common than antennas that local broadcast outlets use to reach listeners or viewers.

Howard Jones, a volunteer at the mission's transmitter site, detailed the process in July of raising a curtain antenna between two 313-foot tall towers erected two years earlier at Kununurra, Western Australia.

In a recent newsletter he described how a team of volunteers followed the directives of HCJB Global engineer Steve Sutherland in assembling the front and rear elements of the antenna.

The front of the antenna consists of 16 dipoles* which transmit the signal," Jones said. "The back reflecting screen, consisting of 83 horizontal wires suspended by nine vertical wires, acts like a mirror and reflects the transmitted signal forward."

"Forward," as Jones put it, means that Christian programming will be beamed to the Indian subcontinent and farther east, all the way to Japan. HCJB Global-Australia has been building an audience by adding language services since the station first began airing programs in 2003.

Five years later, in 2008, Sutherland and a volunteer staff began constructing the infrastructure (footings, guy wire anchors, etc.) for erecting high-gain antennas which carry a more concentrated signal.

After assembling the antenna's front and rear elements on the ground, the volunteers watched as a two-tractor-powered pulley arrangement hoisted the antenna up into place a section at a time.

HCJB Global-Australia Director Dale Stagg said afterwards that "words can barely describe the overwhelming sensation you get when standing underneath this structure which, when completed, will enable us to transmit a far stronger and more consistent signal than we do now."

The site has two HC100 shortwave transmitters built by staff at the mission's HCJB Global Technology Center in Indiana with two more similar units on the way. Also on the way is one of the crew's big challenges: seasonal rains that soften the ground of the antenna fields. The rains usually come each December and January.

Programs go out in 21 languages, airing a total of 105 hours per week. Languages include English, Mandarin, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Nepali, Chhattisgarhi, Indonesian (Bahasa), Kuruk, Bhojpuri, Tamil, Marathi, Marwari, Telegu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Malay (Bahasa), Rawang, Min Nan Chinese Fujian, Eastern Panjabi and Hmar. The antenna arrays on the new site will increase the reach of these broadcasts.

*A dipole is an antenna approximately one-half wavelength long, split at its electrical center for connection to a transmission line, its radiation pattern having a maximum at right angles to the antenna.