Glasnost hits Aussie airwaves
by the WIA's national historian VK3AFU
We look back on amateur radio history.
The Canberra Times newspaper archives contains an article headlined "Glasnost
hits Aussie airwaves" which records the breakthrough in east-west
relations that occurred in November, 1988.
It was when the crew on the MIR space station made the first ever QSO
with the western world. Bob Arnold VK3ZBB chatted with Soviet cosmonaut
Mousa Manarova U2MIR on the 15th of November 1988.
The Canberra Times reported Bob VK3ZBB as saying
"I was absolutely over the moon, it was tremendous, to me a tremendous
thrill."
The Soviet Embassy in Canberra confirmed that these, the first ever
transmissions from the MIR space station to the western world were part
of the government's glasnost, or openness, policy.
Australia had been deliberately chosen as the first western nation in
the expansion of glasnost through the medium of amateur radio from the
MIR space station that was then orbiting 400 kilometres above earth.
Jim Linton VK3PC
Source: Wireless
Institute of Australia
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