UPPER DOMAIN RD, QUEENS DOMAIN

The Coastal Wireless Station is a small weatherboard building with a hipped roof and double-hung windows erected in 1912. A marine radio service has been in operation from this site since its establishment, and it is now run by Coast Radio Hobart. As the building has been in continuous use, the radio equipment has also been continually repaired, upgraded and replaced. None of the original 1912 wireless equipment remains and the interior of the original building was refurbished in 1973 (Hobart City Council 2002, p. 95). There is a shed and water storage tank nearby which are excluded from this registration.   Comparative Analysis: The Coastal Wireless Station at the Queen's Domain, Hobart, is only one of four stations ever to be erected in Tasmania and is the only one remaining in the state which is still operational. The first station was at East Devonport. It was erected for experimentation with wireless technology in 1906 and was dismantled in the same year. The next was erected on King Island in 1911 by Catholic priest and radio pioneer, Archibald John Shaw and the fourth station was erected on Flinders Island in 1913. The King Island and Flinders stations most likely fell out of use during the 1920s, as by this time stations in Hobart, Adelaide and Melbourne had the capability to cover the Bass Straight area (Barry McCann, Coast Radio Hobart, pers comm. 3 October 2013). The buildings on King Island are no longer extant while the buildings on Flinders Island were still extant in 2009 (THR nomination #11688).   Hobart’s Coastal Wireless Station is one of eight stations erected around the coast of Australia and offshore territories in 1912, and the only one of this first group to be listed on a state heritage register. Broome Coastal Wireless Station (1913) in Western Australia is the only other wireless station listed on a state heritage register in Australia.