CLANDESTINE BROADCASTS SPECIAL

Shortwave , a  development showing  of  a   new alternative  music composition by  Melbourne-based sound artist Ian Moorhead, inspired by shortwave radio transmissions and coded and clandestine  messages, received and transmitted from northern Australia, will  be played in Darwin  on  November 15  at  3pm  in  the   Brown's  Mart  Studio .

 It will include the following : 

·  Radio Maubere - an East Timorese radio station that sent covert information to Australian activists in and around Darwin following the Indonesian invasion of Portuguese  East Timor in 1975.

· JN-25 - Japanese radio messages containing Kana Morse code intercepted by special wireless units based in northern Australia during WW2.

·  Cherry Ripe - a mysterious numbers station  that transmitted  out of Humpty Doo in the Northern Territory for a period up  until  2009.

As part of his research for the  unusual project , Moorehead recently visited Darwin  and conferred with  agronomist  and  activist  Robert  Wesley-Smith who was deeply involved  in the East Timor  struggle  , as were his twin brothers, Peter  and  Martin , all three subsequently decorated  by  the Timor  Leste  Government in Dili. 

 As a result of  Moorhead's  production,  Robert Wesley-Smith  has sent out  several  photographs  related to the   clandestine  Darwin   radios  used  to      contact    East Timor, including the  100ft high  tower  for one  on  a  rural property at  the 17-mile, owned  by  union  activist, the late Brian Manning.  

Each  of the four concrete  footings of  the tower contained a message, some by  local  Timorese,   relating  to  the   fight  for  freedom, one  below.