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35-614: Point Lonsdale Lighthouse , also known as the Point Lonsdale Signal Station , is close to the township of Point Lonsdale in the Borough of Queenscliffe , Victoria, Australia . It stands at the eastern end of the Bellarine Peninsula , on the western side of the entrance to Port Phillip from Bass Strait , on a headland overlooking the "Rip" , a stretch of water considered one of the more treacherous navigable passages in

70-478: A lighthouse in 1863 and the extension of the railway line from Geelong to Queenscliff in 1879. Since settlement, many ships have been wrecked on the rocky reefs at the entrance to Port Phillip . The post office opened on 15 January 1902. The town is named after police officer William Lonsdale and is the birthplace of former Premier of Victoria Thomas Hollway . Point Lonsdale contains several Victorian Heritage Register listed sites, including: Next to

105-505: A holiday destination. The traditional owners of this area are the Wautharong people of the Kulin nation . The escaped convict William Buckley , the first known European to have lived in the area, lived with local Aborigines from 1803 to 1835. A signal station was built in 1854. Permanent European settlement began at Point Lonsdale in the latter half of the 19th century with the construction of

140-574: A major renovation. Bowlers bowl at the Point Lonsdale Bowling Club. Surfers surf with the Point Lonsdale Boardriders Club The tennis club is open to members and their guests. [REDACTED] Media related to Point Lonsdale, Victoria at Wikimedia Commons Foghorn All foghorns use a vibrating column of air to create an audible tone, but the method of setting up this vibration differs. Some horns, such as

175-539: A small cannon was let off periodically to warn away ships, but this was labor-intensive and dangerous. In the United States , whistles were also used where a source of steam power was available, though Trinity House , the British lighthouse authority , did not employ them, preferring an explosive signal. Throughout the 19th century efforts were made to automate the signalling process. Trinity House eventually developed

210-477: A system (the "Signal, Fog, Mk I") for firing a gun-cotton charge electrically. However, the charge had to be manually replaced after each signal. At Portland Bill , for example, which had a five-minute interval between fog-signals, this meant the horns had to be lowered, the two new charges inserted, and the horns raised again every five minutes during foggy periods. Clockwork systems were also developed for striking bells. Stricken bells were developed throughout

245-579: Is a Queenscliffe Borough icon, having been lit since about 1952–1953. When the lights are on you know Christmas is getting close. The township of Point Lonsdale has also been used in some episodes of the hit children's series Round the Twist for some of the exterior scenes. Golfers play at the course of the Lonsdale Links Golf Club on Fellows Road, rated a Top 20 course in Australia, after undergoing

280-426: Is a typical and aesthetically pleasing example of an early 20th-century lighthouse design. The foghorn shed is the only one known from a Victorian lighthouse, and the one Gardner Engine that remains on site sends compressed air to two vertical holding tanks which power the foghorn, all rare in its original setting. The precinct is of archaeological significance for its potential to reveal artefactual remains pertaining to

315-430: Is built of reinforced concrete and surmounted by a Chance Brothers lantern. The original oil lamp of the light was replaced first with an acetylene light and later with an electric light. Surrounding its base is the octagonal , two-storey, brick signal station and observation room. Halfway up the tower is a cantilevered platform supporting red and green navigation lights . The first navigation aid at Point Lonsdale

350-456: Is lit up on the first Saturday in December at the end of an evening of A Community Celebration of Christmas. The Community Celebration of Christmas is run by a committee of volunteers assisted by the local service clubs, Lions and Rotary. The focus of the event is the community and children and each year the lights are turned on by a special guest (or guests) of honour chosen for their contribution to

385-579: The Borough of Queenscliffe and the City of Greater Geelong . Point Lonsdale is also one of the headlands which, with Point Nepean , frame The Rip , the entrance to Port Phillip . The headland is dominated by the Point Lonsdale Lighthouse . At the 2016 census , Point Lonsdale had a population of 2,684. The population grows rapidly over the summer months through to the Easter period due to its popularity as

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420-644: The Daboll trumpet for the American lighthouse service, though it was not universally adopted. A few Daboll trumpets remained in use until the mid-20th century. In the United Kingdom , experiments to develop more effective foghorns were carried out by John Tyndall and Lord Rayleigh , amongst others. The latter's ongoing research for Trinity House culminated in a design for a siren with a large trumpet designed to achieve maximum sound propagation (see reference for details of

455-474: The International Association of Lighthouse Authorities . Fog signals have also been used on railway lines since the middle of the 19th century to indicate to warn of disabled trains, work parties, or other hazards on the line ahead. Small explosive detonators or torpedoes are placed on the track, and detonated by the pressure of the wheels of the oncoming train. British writer Jennifer Lucy Allan

490-513: The 1800s with the use of a governor, including the use of a giant triangle of 4 ft long sides in Maine in 1837. Ships were required to carry bells, with an exemption for Turkish ships because Islam forbade the use of bells. Captain James William Newton claimed to have been the inventor of the fog signalling technique using loud and low notes. The first automated steam -powered foghorn

525-568: The Commissioners of Light Houses for the Bay of Fundy for installation on Partridge Island . While the Commissioners initially rejected Foulis's plan, one commissioner eventually encouraged Foulis to submit detailed plans to the Commission. For reasons unknown, the plans were given to another Canadian engineer, T. T. Vernon Smith , who officially submitted them to the Commissioners as his own. The foghorn

560-491: The Community. The Borough of Queenscliffe has a high percentage of volunteers and it is usually volunteers that are chosen as the special guest/guests of honour in recognition of their contribution to the community. Santa arrives at 7:25 pm in the local Fire Brigade Truck, whilst throwing lollies to the children, to start an evening of entertainment by local performers. Glowcandles are sold as a fundraiser for maintaining equipment on

595-686: The Daboll trumpet, used vibrating plates or metal reeds , a similar principle to a modern electric car horn . Others used air forced through holes in a rotating cylinder or disk, in the same manner as a siren . Semi-automatic operation of foghorns was achieved by using a clockwork mechanism (or "coder") to sequentially open the valves admitting air to the horns; each horn was given its own timing characteristics to help mariners identify them. Audible fog signals have been used in one form or another for hundreds of years, initially simply seashell horns , fog bells or gongs struck manually. At some lighthouses ,

630-588: The Dutch broadcaster VPRO aired a live foghorn concert on national radio composed by Marnie Bjornson, relaying the sound of the foghorns in Emden , Calais , Nieuwpoort , Scheveningen , Den Helder , Lelystad , Urk , Marken and Kornwerderzand , mixed with studio music by sound artist Alvin Curran . Since automation of lighthouses became common in the 1960s and 1970s, most older foghorn installations have been removed to avoid

665-524: The State of Victoria, and has been listed by Heritage Victoria with the Victorian Heritage Database number H1517. It is of historical significance because of its association with the maritime and defence history of the state. The lighthouse structures in the precinct show the importance of navigational aids at a time when shipping was vitally important in maintaining trade between Victorian ports and

700-521: The Trials of Fog Signals ), installed in Trevose Head Lighthouse , Cornwall in 1913. One reporter, after hearing a Brown steam-powered siren for the first time, described it as having "a screech like an army of panthers, weird and prolonged, gradually lowering in note until after half a minute it becomes the roar of a thousand mad bulls, with intermediate voices suggestive of the wail of a lost soul,

735-559: The area around the tower. Organised tours of the tower are conducted on Sundays by the Queenscliffe Maritime Museum . The marine waters around the lighthouse are protected within the Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park . Point Lonsdale, Victoria Point Lonsdale is a coastal township on the Bellarine Peninsula , near Queenscliff , Victoria , Australia . The town is divided between

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770-499: The highest invertebrate diversity of any calcarenite reef in Victoria, while subtidal areas are characterised by diverse and abundant algal communities as well as by encrusting organisms such as ascidians , sponges and bryozoans . Along the open coast there are regular sightings of threatened marine mammals such as humpback and southern right whales . Point Lonsdale has a large 100-year-old Norfolk Pine 'The Christmas Tree' that

805-449: The last staffed lighthouse in Australia. The Point Lonsdale Lighthouse precinct contains not only the lighthouse itself, but other buildings associated with lighthouse operations and navigation, as well as nearby military defence structures built during the First and Second World Wars . The whole precinct is considered to be of architectural , historical and archaeological significance to

840-519: The light passed in 1915 from the state of Victoria to Commonwealth control. It was handed back in 1934 with the lighthouse classified as a “Harbour Entrance Light” rather than a "Coastal Highway Light". The signal station and observation room were added to the base of the tower in 1950. Although the light was automated in 1999, the signal station continues to be staffed and controls the movements of commercial shipping within designated areas both outside and inside Port Phillip Heads, making it possibly

875-489: The moan of a bottomless pit and the groan of a disabled elevator." One of the first automated fog bells was the Stevens Automatic Bell Striker. Some later fog bells were placed under water, particularly in especially dangerous areas, so that their sound (which would be a predictable code, such as the number "23") would be carried further and reverberate through the ship's hull. For example, this technique

910-503: The need to run the complex machinery associated with them, and have been replaced with electrically powered diaphragm or compressed air horns . Activation is completely automated: a laser or photo beam is shot out to sea, and if the beam reflects back to the source (i.e. the laser beam is visible due to the fog), the sensor sends a signal to activate the foghorn. In many cases, modern navigational aids, including GPS , have rendered large, long-range foghorns completely unnecessary, according to

945-469: The rest of the world. The lighthouse was the first guiding light to the entrance of Port Phillip visible from the sea. The defence structures reflect the importance of the defence of Port Phillip and its major cities of Melbourne and Geelong during the two World Wars. The lighthouse precinct buildings, including a foghorn shed built in 1884 and an explosives shed (later used as a rocket shed) built in 1891, are of architectural significance. The lighthouse

980-519: The town is Lake Victoria , a shallow saline lake that is part of the Lonsdale Lakes Nature Reserve and an important site for the waterbirds and migratory waders that form part of the population using the Ramsar -listed Swan Bay wetland system. The coastal rock platforms and adjacent waters are included in the Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park . The intertidal platforms have

1015-421: The tree with all profits supporting the ongoing lighting of the tree. The tree itself is decorated by community volunteers and service club members coordinated by The Christmas Tree Committee. Festooning is hauled up by hand and manually secured into the tree. This tree can be found at the corner of Grimes Road and Point Lonsdale Rd, Point Lonsdale, Victoria. When lit up this tree can be seen for miles out to sea and

1050-489: The use of the site as a lightstation and signal station. The lighthouse's exterior was restored in 1997 and, in 2002, Heritage Victoria and the Victorian Channels Authority cooperated to restore the interior. Celebrations of the structure's centenary were held on 23 March 2002. It contains a restored foghorn which is operated in foggy weather, giving a double blast every 30 seconds. There is public access to

1085-564: The world, and the only seaborne approach to Melbourne . It is operated by Victorian Ports Corporation (Melbourne). The lighthouse was designed by the Victorian Public Works Department and erected by the contractors the Coate Brothers. It is of a traditional design consisting of a cylindrical tower and capital , similar to many late nineteenth century Victorian lighthouses, such as the earlier Point Hicks Lighthouse. It

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1120-454: Was a signal station erected in 1852. In 1856 a red pillar beacon was built. In 1863 the original Queenscliff Low Light , a prefabricated wooden structure, was re-erected at Point Lonsdale and painted with distinctive black and red bands. It used a temporary light until a permanent light was lit in 1867. It was replaced by the current concrete tower in 1902, with the wooden tower dismantled and cut up for firewood in 1912. Responsibility for

1155-468: Was constructed at Partridge Island in 1859 as the Vernon-Smith horn. After protest by Foulis and a legislative inquiry, Foulis was credited as the true inventor, but he never patented or profited from his invention. The development of fog signal technology continued apace at the end of the 19th century. During the same period an inventor, Celadon Leeds Daboll , developed a coal-powered foghorn called

1190-407: Was invented by Robert Foulis , a Scotsman who emigrated to Saint John , New Brunswick , Canada. Foulis is said to have heard his daughter playing the piano in the distance on a foggy night, and noticed the low notes were more audible than the higher notes: he then designed a device to produce a low-frequency sound, as well as a code system for use with it. Foulis repeatedly presented his concept to

1225-455: Was used at White Shoal Light (Michigan) . This was an earlier precursor to RACON . From the early 20th century an improved device called the diaphone , originally invented as an organ stop by Robert Hope-Jones , and developed as a fog signal by John Northey of Toronto , became the standard foghorn apparatus for new installations. Diaphones were powered by compressed air and could emit extremely powerful low-frequency notes. In 1982,

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