NASA Carnarvon and Apollo 11 TV

Watching the Slow Scan TV on the station.

At Carnarvon, the Moon rose about twenty minutes after the television broadcast had begun.

USB Supervising Engineer Paul Dench was standing closest to the Slow Scan monitor that had been installed for Apollo 2 (i.e. AS-203, launched on 5 July 1966). He recalls the excitement as USB crew members who were not too occupied directly with tracking were able to watch the live TV from the lunar surface.

“We were fitted with TV capability for one of the early Saturn launches before we even got to the moon so we could view the fuel sloshing in one of the tanks.

So CRO USB could receive TV and a couple of monitors in the T&C building showed the first moon walks later stages – the moon hadn’t risen at Carnarvon until 30 mins after the walk started.

Of course with a 9m dish our signal was not as good as that at Honeysuckle.” – Paul Dench, e-mail 07 December 2006.

The video equipment installed at Carnarvon for AS-203 (Apollo 2). The slow scan rack is at left. On the right is a VR-1100 video recorder.

In addition, in a back room, a small audience of trackers and their wives watched on a small monitor constructed by Tracker Doug Beaney with spare parts from CRO’s electronic components store.

This effort was quite separate from the Carnarvon OTC relay which was seen in the town and via Perth to West Australian TV stations.

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