The Meteorological Office shared the two-room wireless station from 1939, until 1955, when an independent station was completed on the eastern side of the Island above Middle Beach.
The plan to build a Lord Howe Island airstrip had at least a 20-year timeline. Whilst articles about the strip occasionally appeared in the mainland press, no one followed the story more closely than the owner/editor of the Island Signal, Jim Whistler. Jim loved the flying boats but he knew they would eventually be superseded by land-based aircraft.