My trip to Lord Howe Island

by Duane Ausherman

While on my major trip “down under” in 1984, I decided to go to Lord Howe Island to operate Ham Radio.  That is called a DXpedition in Ham lingo.  Lord Howe is just off the coast of Australia, some 370 miles East of the mainland.

I failed miserably at doing my research before I left.  Upon arriving, I discovered that I had not brought any food while I had a hotel reservation.  The only local store wasn’t set to open for three days.  All of the other guests knew this and brought their food, partly because the food at the local store is very expensive.

A family took pity on me and fed me until the store opened up.  There were there for both play and fishing.  They gave me a crawfish that they had just caught, but it was nothing like what we know as crawfish.  This thing was a huge lobster.  I cooked it and loved every bite.

The island is populated by a legacy policy.  If you weren’t born there or had family born there, you couldn’t live there.  One exception that I found was the lone Ham Radio operator on the Island.  He was happy to see me because he had no interest in making lots of Ham radio contacts to hand out another “country” to Hams around the world.  Hams like me, that operated the radio while on the island, took that pressure off of him.

I can only find one photo of the island.  The island is beautiful, and it is just natural that they get tourists, but mostly from Australia.

Updated 30 March 2023