Royal Hotel, Birdsville linked to pedal generators, the others being placed at 4 head stations in far western Queensland and at the Aboriginal Mission at Mornington Island, with base station VJI established at Cloncurry. For the first 18 months, communication was by Morse code, but the system proved enormously popular, and soon revolutionised outback communications. Importantly, Birdsville became reliably connected to the station properties in the Diamantina district, and with the new Aerial Medical Service, established by Flynn in 1928 under the auspices of the AIM, and based at Cloncurry. In 1934, nursing sisters Edna McLean and Amy Bishop of the AIM's Birdsville
Mary Kathleen, Queensland Mary Kathleen, Queensland Mary Kathleen was a mining settlement in the northwestern part of Queensland, Australia. It is located in the Selwyn Range between Mount Isa and Cloncurry. Mary Kathleen was first settled during the 1860s. Uranium was first discovered at Mary Kathleen by Clem Walton and Norm McConachy in 1954: the deposit and the township was named after the late wife of McConachy. Prospecting and exploitation rights were subsequently onsold, and in 1955 Rio Tinto Mining formed Mary Kathleen Uranium Ltd to develop a mine and service town. An architect-designed town grew during 1956-58, with reticulated water from a