Photo Gerry Pyne

Tuesday 31st July 2012  – Hope Vale radio was bought into the 21st century with the installation of the state of the art Black Star  broadband data delivery service today. QRAM manager Jim Remedio  “flicked the switch” at 7.57pm, just in time to heat the time pips for the first hourly news and weather. Hope Vale will now receive national  news and local weather on the hour, 7 days a week. This is one of the many improvements in service to the local community available with the connection to Black Star.

The QRAM team headed up from Cairns early that morning on the 6 hour trip to Hope Vale, arriving around 2pm. Gerry Pyne’s technical experience enabled us to get the service up and running that day. With no accommodation available in Hope Vale, we started on the 1 hour trip back to Cooktown  for a feed and a rest up, which we needed after such a long day.

Wednesday was another early morning back down the road to Hope Vale to spend most of the day on final touches to the Black Star installation,  installing a new internet computer for the broadcasters and general maintenance.

Late in the afternoon Gerry was finally happy with the big city audio quality coming out of the Hope Vale antenna and we headed off on a long dusty road across  Cape York to Pormpuraaw.