Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt

21°48′59″S 114°09′56″E

Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt
Satellite Image

Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt is a joint Australian and United States naval communication station located on the north-west coast of Australia, 6 kilometres (4 mi) north of the town of Exmouth, Western Australia. The station is operated and maintained by the Australian Department of Defence on behalf of Australia and the United States and provides very low frequency (VLF) radio transmission to United States Navy, Royal Australian Navy and allied ships and submarines in the western Pacific Ocean and eastern Indian Ocean.[1] The frequency is 19.8 kHz. With a transmission power of 1 megawatt, it is the most powerful transmission station in the Southern Hemisphere.

The town of Exmouth was built at the same time as the communications station to provide support to the base and to house dependent families of US Navy personnel.

VLF transmitter masts
Diagram of Towers
VLF transmitter masts as seen from nearby Bundegi Beach

The station features thirteen tall radio towers. The tallest tower is called Tower Zero and is 154 metres (505 feet) tall, and was for many years the tallest man-made structure in the Southern Hemisphere.[2] Six towers, each 154 metres (505 feet) tall, are placed in a hexagon around Tower Zero. The other six towers, which are each 154 metres (505 feet) tall, are placed in a larger hexagon around Tower Zero.

Structure Height Location
(m) (ft)
Tower 0 154 505 21°48′58″S 114°9′55″E
Tower 1 154 505 21°48′35″S 114°9′57″E
Tower 2 154 505 21°48′48″S 114°10′18″E
Tower 3 154 505 21°49′12″S 114°10′16″E
Tower 4 154 505 21°49′23″S 114°9′54″E
Tower 5 154 505 21°49′10″S 114°9′32″E
Tower 6 154 505 21°48′45″S 114°9′33″E
Tower 7 154 505 21°48′25″S 114°10′19″E
Tower 8 154 505 21°49′1″S 114°10′38″E
Tower 9 154 505 21°49′35″S 114°10′14″E
Tower 10 154 505 21°49′33″S 114°9′31″E
Tower 11 154 505 21°48′56″S 114°9′11″E
Tower 12 154 505 21°48′22″S 114°9′35″E

On 3 March 2009, the Defence Materiel Organisation advertised on the AusTender website a tender to construct two new roads at the station. The tender stated the 357 guy wires which support the 13 towers had exceeded their life expectancy and the roads will support the installation of the VLF guy wires. It states:

Naval Communication Station Harold E Holt (NCSHEH) is sited on the northernmost tip of the peninsula known as North West Cape. The Very Low Frequency (VLF) antennas are large spider webs of wire supported in a top hat arrangement. The centre tower 'Tower Zero', rises to a height of 180.9 odd metres. The other towers are spread out in two concentric rings around Tower Zero; the towers of the inner ring are 154 metres high while those of the outer ring are similar height. Buried in the ground beneath the antenna array is 386 kilometres of bare copper ground mat.

— Defence Materiel Organisation, PDBF-0002-2009[3]

History
Diagram of a Trideco type antenna like that installed at Harold E. Holt.

Sir Garfield Barwick, Australian Minister for External Affairs, negotiated the lease on the US Base at North West Cape in 1963 with US Ambassador William Battle. The station was commissioned as U.S. Naval Communication Station North West Cape on 16 September 1967 at a ceremony with the US Ambassador to Australia Ed Clark and the Prime Minister of Australia Harold Holt, at which peppercorn rent for the base for the first year was paid.[4]

On 20 September 1968, the station was officially renamed to US Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt in memory of the late Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia, who disappeared whilst swimming and was declared dead, presumed drowned, three months after the station was commissioned.

With the election of the Labor Government to power in 1972, Defence Minister Lance Barnard started negotiations on the condition of operation of the US military bases in Australia. On 9 January 1974 a joint statement by Lance Barnard and James Schlesinger, the US Secretary of Defense, assigned the Deputy Commander of the base to a Royal Australian Navy officer and gave Australian personnel roles in base technical and maintenance functions. The cipher room was closed to Australian scrutiny. The joint statement stressed the importance of consultations in crises. There was no undertaking given by the US to relay fire orders to their submarines bearing nuclear missiles.[5]

In May 1974 several hundred people travelled to North West Cape from around Australia to protest and occupy the base and "symbolically reclaiming it for the Australian people".[4] During the occupation the Eureka Flag was flown over the base with fifty-five people arrested during the protest. Songs composed in the campaign against North West Cape and other US bases in Australia include We don't want no Yankee Bases and Omega Doodle which have become part of the Australian folkloric tradition.[6] From 1967 until October 1992 a USN Naval Security Group Detachment was stationed at the facility.[7]

Station buildings in 1979.

In Western Australian domestic politics, the presence of foreign military installations in the state has occasionally been questioned over the decades.[8] The "U.S." was dropped from the station's official title with the advent of joint United States and Royal Australian Navy operation in 1974. In 1991, an agreement was reached between the governments of Australia and the United States that would make the facility an Australian Naval Communication Station by 1999, a transition that began with a Royal Australian Navy officer taking command of the facility in 1992.[9] The majority of US Naval presence ended in 1993 with the withdrawal of all US Naval personnel.[10]

In July 2002, the Royal Australian Navy handed over operation of the station to the Defence Materiel Organisation.[10] The base is currently operated under contract by Raytheon Australia.[11] On 15 July 2008, Australia and the US signed a bilateral treaty governing the future joint use of the facility for the next 25 years.[12]

Harold E. Holt was identified as a potential Air Force Space Surveillance System (or Space Fence) site in 2011.[13] On 6 December 2013 it was announced that the Space Surveillance Telescope (SST), part of the United States Space Surveillance Network, will be relocated to the Harold E. Holt Naval Communication Station from its initial deployment at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The SST is expected to be fully operational in 2022.

A C-Band Space Surveillance Radar is also being installed and once completed will be operated remotely by Royal Australian Air Force personnel from No. 1 Remote Sensor Unit at RAAF Base Edinburgh. It will provide a Space Situational Awareness capability, allowing the tracking of space assets and debris.[14]

Aircraft interference controversy

On 7 October 2008, Qantas Flight 72 made an emergency landing at Learmonth airport near the town of Exmouth, Western Australia following an inflight accident featuring a pair of sudden uncommanded pitch-down manoeuvres that resulted in serious injuries to many of the occupants.[15][16][17][18][19] The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) identified in a preliminary report that a fault occurred within the Number 1 Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU) and is the "likely origin of the event". The ADIRU – one of three such devices on the aircraft – began to supply incorrect data to the other aircraft systems.[18][20] The ATSB assessment of speculation that possible interference from Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt or passenger personal electronic devices could have been involved was "extremely unlikely".[21]

On 27 December 2008, another aircraft, Qantas Flight 71, also had a malfunction in its ADIRU. The incident again fuelled media speculation regarding the significance of the Harold E. Holt facility, with the Australian and International Pilots Association calling for commercial aircraft to be barred from the area as a precaution until the events are better understood,[22][23] while the manager of the facility has claimed that it is "highly, highly unlikely" that any interference has been caused.[24]

See also

References
  1. "Australia and the United States celebrate 50 years for Naval Communication Station Harold E Holt". www.minister.defence.gov.au. 16 September 2017. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  2. Graff, Garrett M. (2017). Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself - While the Rest of Us Die. Simon & Schuster.
  3. Closed ATM View - PDBF-0002-2009 AusTenders. Accessed 18 November 2009
  4. Builders' Labourers' Song Book, pp190-194, Published by Widescape International and the BLF, 1975. ISBN 0-86932-010-6. A recording was released of the speech by US ambassador Ed Clark titled "Ed Clark Pulls It Off", Liberation Records, Melbourne, Australia (April 1974)
  5. Secrets of State by George Munster, Published by Walsh & Munster (an imprint of Angus and Robertson) 1982 ISBN 0-207-14634-9
  6. Warren Fahey, The Balls of Bob Menzies: Australian Political Songs 1900-1980, pp288-289, pp299-300, Angus and Robertson Publishers, 1989, ISBN 0-207-16204-2
  7. "NAVSECGRU Stations past and present". www.navycthistory.com. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
  8. Barker, E. A.(1985) Brian Burke supports the role of US communications base at NW Cape, West Australian, 25 Nov. 1985, p.3,
  9. "Sign outside Naval Communication Harold E Holt". Still As Life. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  10. "Naval Communication Station Harold E Holt ( Area A ) (Place ID 103552)". Australian Heritage Database. Australian Government. Retrieved 26 August 2007.
  11. "Mission Support Overview". Raytheon Australia. Archived from the original on 25 April 2016. Retrieved 14 July 2016.
  12. Signing of Harold E. Holt Treaty Archived 2 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Australian Department of Defence
  13. Payne, Rob. "WA in the running for Space Fence". Astronomy WA. Archived from the original on 23 March 2012. Retrieved 9 September 2011.
  14. "US Space Radar at Exmouth". DMO Bulletin. Defence Materiel Organisation (2). 2014. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
  15. "2008/40 - Qantas Airbus Incident Media Conference" (Press release). Australian Transport Safety Bureau. 8 October 2008. Archived from the original on 17 June 2019. Retrieved 8 October 2008.
  16. "2008/40a — ATSB Airbus investigation update" (Press release). Australian Transport Safety Bureau. 9 October 2008. Archived from the original on 17 June 2019. Retrieved 14 October 2008.
  17. "2008/40b — Qantas Airbus Accident Media Conference" (Press release). Australian Transport Safety Bureau. 10 October 2008. Archived from the original on 17 June 2019. Retrieved 14 October 2008.
  18. "2008/43 - Qantas Airbus A330 accident Media Conference" (Press release). Australian Transport Safety Bureau. 14 October 2008. Archived from the original on 17 June 2019. Retrieved 14 October 2008.
  19. Siddique, Haroon (7 October 2008). "Qantas flight makes emergency landing as dozens of passengers injured". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 October 2008.
  20. "Computer glitch may be behind Qantas incident: ATSB". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 8 October 2008. Retrieved 8 October 2008.
  21. "In-flight upset 154 km west of Learmonth, WA 7 October 2008 VH-QPA Airbus A330-303" (PDF).
  22. Catanzaro, Joseph (2 January 2009). "Navigation failure again hits Qantas in north-west". The Age. Retrieved 2 January 2009.
  23. "Call for no-go zone after another Qantas forced landing". The Age. 2 January 2009. Retrieved 2 January 2009.
  24. Hopkin, Michael (7 January 2009). "Exmouth interference 'unlikely'". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 7 January 2009.

Further reading
  • "Google" satellite map: the map opens centered on the "Area A" very low frequency (VLF) towers site, which is at the northernmost edge of the Northwest Cape, approximately 4 miles north of the Main base; the "Area B" high frequency receiver (HFR) site was approximately 30 miles south of the Main Base
  • "Google" street view: The view from the side of the road with Tower 9 in the foreground.
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