How Radio Has Grown In

Papua

From Our Own Correspondent

Pt. Moresby, Aug. 26.

THE Territory, with much regret, says farewell to Mr. Ken Frank, the highly efficient and always courte ous officer who has been for years in charge of the AW A service in Papua, and is now being promoted and trans ferred.

When Mr. Prank first arrived in Papua in 1929, radio communication was effec tive enough, but crude. Since then, we have enjoyed the following developments and refinements: — .

Beam transmission has been installed, to give us direct and immediate contact with the chief Australian and Pacific stations.

Teleradio has spread, from being a crude set, powered by a sweating boy on a bicycle frame, until now practically every plantation in the Territory can communicate with the PM mother station.

Now, by radiophone, we can talk to our friends in Australia, New Guinea, or even farther afield.

Mr. E. J. O’Donnell, also a well-known AWA officer, will succeed Mr. Frank in Port Moresby.

Mr. Peter Jensen, of Lae, New Guinea, arrived in Australia recently to enlist in the AIF.

Mr. Charles Cooke, of Emira Island, New Guinea Territory, who succoured the survivors of the “Rangitane’’ last year, was unable to attend the August meeting of the Pacific Islands Society in Sydney, owing to an attack of malaria.

Members hope to meet him, however, before he returns to his island home.

One of the best known figures in former years in Samoa, Mr. William Blacklock, is lying seriously ill at his home at Woollahra, Sydney, where, in early September, he celebrated his 85th birthday. Mr. Blacklock, Victorian-bom, though an American citizen, went to Samoa in the early ’eighties, and for some years was United States Consul- General there. His daughters, the Misses Eva and Ella Blacklock, reside in Sydney.