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18. AC Kinnear operating a shortwave radio.
Title : 18. AC Kinnear operating a shortwave radio. 18. AC Kinnear operating a shortwave radio.
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Creator : Mountford, Charles P., photographer
Date of creation : 1938
Format : Photograph
Dimensions : 60 x 60 mm
Contributor : State Library of South Australia
Catalogue record
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Description :

Press correspondent AC Kinnear operating a shortwave radio during a South Australian Government expedition sent to the Simpson Desert to search for possible remains of explorer Ludwig Leichhardt. The expedition was mounted to examine relics found near Mount Dare Station by station owner Edwin Lowe. The site of their excavation was named 'Ritchie's Ridge' in honour of the Chief Secretary of South Australia at that time, Sir George Ritchie.


AC Kinnear acted as both the communications officer, and cinematographer for the expedition.

Bob Grundy was the party's other radio operator, left behind in Oodnadatta. Kinnear's role was to send regular transmissions to Grundy who then relayed them to the Adelaide newspapers via the local post office.

This expediton was the first to use such direct methods of communications to keep a news-hungry population informed.

In his final transmission, published 30 August, Kinnear praised the radio equipment he had used.
"The expedition has demonstrated the value and effectiveness of these transceivers which are used so extensively in the interests of the Australian Inland Mission. The portable set with the party has been bumped over crab-hole country, gibbers, and creek beds, has been smothered in grit, and drenched with rain. But it has never hesitated to do everything asked of it."
Subjects
Related names :

Kinnear, A. C.

Coverage year : 1938
Region : Flinders Ranges and Far North - Outback
Further reading :
Connell, Gordon. The mystery of Ludwig Leichhardt. Carlton, Vic. : Melbourne University Press, 1980

Lamshed, Max. 'Monty' : the biography of C.P. Mountford, Adelaide : Rigby, 1972, pp. 56-60

Mountford, Charles P. 'Papers relating to the South Australian Government Expedition to search for the remains of explorer Ludwig Leichhardt', PRG 1218/9

Price, A. Grenfell. The Mystery of Leichhardt : the South Australian government expedition of 1938, South Australia : Royal Geographical Society, 1937-38

Roderick, Colin. Leichhardt, the dauntless explorer, North Ryde, N.S.W. : Angus & Robertson, 1988
Internet links :
Australian Dictionary of Biography - Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt

National Museum of Australia. Leichhardt: the man, the mystery, the science, the history [symposium held in 2007]

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