Our Stories
Through the Eyes of a MAF Technologies (formerly CRMF) Pioneer (Part II)
How much technology has changed over 50 years
In Celebration to National World Radio Day
Graham and Gaille sent the CRMF team a beautiful letter, which you can read in the first part of this article.
Graham with his family arrived 50 years ago in 1969 and were one of the first few missionaries working with CRMF when the mission was first based at Rugli in Hagen. Graham worked as the radio technician repairing mission network radios, MAF radios and using the Medevac system and also manufactured and installed the HF antennas. Grahams wife, Gaille was also often involved with organizing the Medevac system as well.
The following photographs are featured in the CRMF article, “Happy World Radio Day”. In Graham Spendlove’s letter, he goes into details explaining different types of vintage radios and transmitters that CRMF used in the past and the purpose that each radio served.
Picture on the left is a photograph of our transmitter room. The equipment on the table includes the microphone mixer which is at the bottom left.
We had another microphone in the workshop in the room next door and two microphones in the teacher’s room on the other side, for the School of the Air teachers. The equipment on the right bottom is the CRMF manufactured (in Sydney) tropical waterproof transceiver.
It was 20-watt unit and ran on 12-volt DC. It was the standby unit if we had no 240-volt power from the hydro system. For the repair technicians, note the 28 screws around the outside of the front panelwere flat head screws were not easy to remove as they were weatherproofed!
We had no battery screwdrivers to undo them 50 years ago, so they all had to be unscrewed by hand. To remove and replace the front cover for repairing and re-aligning the weather proof rubber gasket took quite some time and even as long as the repair itself. Many missions used these radios as well. The units on the top is the loudspeaker and the remote-control equipment so we could remotely communicate from our house. The other is the “doctor call system” to the Baptist hospital down the Baiyer valley for emergency calls so that the doctor could give advice directly to a mission nurse or an aide worker who may be on the other side of PNG and with a different mission.
The equipment on the right was an ex-army transmitter and receiver 100 – watts which gave us excellent coverage and reception over most of PNG.
The man pictured below is using a Missavia transceiver manufactured by MAF in USA. There were many of these radios around the missions. Many of the missions also used the ex-army AWA model 3BZ. These were also used by the Coast Watchers during WW2 reporting Japanese shipping movements. They were termed as ‘Portable Transceivers’ by the army.
These were just some of the many types of equipment that were sent to us to repair. Gaille was also often involved with organizing the Medevac system as well, but what a difference compared to the equipment the lady pictured is using now. How much has technology grown over the 50 years.
It is great to see so many PNG people at CRMF doing such a marvelous work there now. I would have loved to have had many of you with your wonderful skills working with me back 50 years ago…
We appreciate the beginnings of CRMF and we also appreciate our past and present missionaries and the tool’s they used to provide communication to share the word of God and provide other services.
We are thankful to the Lord that we can continue to be true to our original ministry and mission statement by supplying HF radios to the remote people of PNG as well as monitoring our radio network 24 hours a week.
Click the button below to read part one of Graham Spendlove’s letter.