{"id":796633,"date":"2026-07-13T02:18:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T02:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/796633\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T02:18:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T02:18:17","slug":"tas-maritime-radio-celebrates-50-years-of-volunteer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/796633\/","title":{"rendered":"Tas Maritime Radio celebrates 50 years of volunteer service"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tasmania\u2019s volunteer maritime radio network is celebrating 50 years since the organisation that became Tas Maritime Radio was founded.<\/p>\n

Tas Maritime Radio traces its origins to 1975, when Barry McCann and Les Collis founded the Tasmanian Smallcraft Marine Radio Group after McCann went fishing and his engine broke down with no radio on board.<\/p>\n

The Margate base came on air for the first time on July 10 1976.<\/p>\n

\u201cBase operator Len Bonnitcha broadcast the weather forecast for south-eastern Tasmania,\u201d McCann said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Tas Maritime Radio now has around 1500 registered vessels on its network<\/p>\n

\u201cBy this time, fourteen boats had joined the network and for the next 10 years, the network grew at the average rate of one hundred per year.\u201d<\/p>\n

What started as a small group of radio enthusiasts has grown into one of Australia\u2019s most extensive volunteer maritime radio networks, with around 1500 registered vessels and a team of 22 operators, volunteer technicians, computer programmers and tower climbers.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Margate base first went on air on July 10, 1976<\/p>\n

The network now operates 11 VHF base stations around Tasmania and three long-range HF stations, all controlled by a single operator at any one time doing four-hour shifts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very proud of what we have all achieved \u2013 we being our large team of volunteers,\u201d McCann said.<\/p>\n

Over the decades, the organisation has undergone several name changes and major upgrades.<\/p>\n

It shifted from 27 mHz to VHF in 1998, took control of the old Hobart Radio HF station on Bruny Island in 1993 and moved to the Domain in Hobart in 2004.<\/p>\n

\"\"The network now operates 11 VHF base stations around Tasmania<\/p>\n

In 2002, when Telstra Maritime closed all HF stations around Australia, the network became Coast Radio Hobart, providing long-range HF coverage to New Zealand and mainland Australia.<\/p>\n

Two new base stations on Tasmania\u2019s West Coast were added in 2014 with help from Transend, Marine and Safety Tasmania and Icom Australia, prompting a final name change to Tas Maritime Radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe name more accurately reflects the service area we cover,\u201d McCann said.<\/p>\n

Marine and Safety Tasmania CEO Lia Morris said the organisation had been proud to support the network for more than 25 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cTas Maritime Radio has played a significant role in preventing hundreds of incidents every year from escalating into life-threatening situations,\u201d Morris said.<\/p>\n

This year, the organisation has begun converting its links to IP technology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tasmania\u2019s volunteer maritime radio network is celebrating 50 years since the organisation that became Tas Maritime Radio was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-796633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}