Viewers in Eastern Australia saw the full lunar broadcast live.
As mentioned elsewhere, TV viewers in Eastern Australia saw the television broadcast sourced almost entirely from Honeysuckle Creek and Parkes, via Sydney Video.
At the beginning of the broadcast, for a few seconds the ABC selected the feed from Houston with the Goldstone picture, until the switch was made to the clearer Honeysuckle video.
From that point, the next 8 minutes of television, including the first step, came from Honeysuckle Creek via Sydney Video. The rest came from Parkes via Sydney Video, starting when Charlie Goodman in Sydney selected the Parkes picture for transmission to Houston via Moree.
At several points, Eastern Australian viewers briefly saw the return feed of the Parkes picture coming back from the USA via Intelsat III and Moree –
a.) During President Nixon’s phone call to Tranquility Base. Local stations selected the Houston-released video which had the picture of the President in the Oval Office added.
b.) And when the 525 line picture from Sydney Video (or perhaps the 525 to 625 standards converter) lost sync at various times during the broadcast, the ABC (and possibly the commercial networks) switched to the Houston feed.
At each of those switches, it was possible to appreciate the degradation caused to the picture by satellite and long-haul transmission to the US and back.
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This diagram shows the reach of the broadband network in Eastern Australia in July 1969. It extended as far north as Cairns in Queensland, west to Port Pirie in South Australia, and south to Hobart and the Tasmanian regionals.
Viewers in Western Australia saw the broadcast via the Carnarvon OTC earth station.
This Department of Supply graphic from Lloyd Bott’s collection. Scan: Ken Sheridan, image enhancement: Colin Mackellar.
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