Now, as the 50th anniversary of the moon landing nears, he's telling it to us.

"It may be true, it may be untrue. But I'm telling you as it was told to me," said Col, who is president of the Astronomical Society of the Hunter.

Col said there were three telemetry receiving stations on Earth capable of handling the "vast amounts of data traffic necessary" to do what was needed to broadcast the moon landing to a global audience.

These stations were in California [Goldstone], Madrid [Fresnedillas de la Oliva] and Canberra [Honeysuckle].

"Parkes radio telescope [nicknamed the Dish] was on standby as a possible emergency receiver," Col said.

The moon-mission schedule involved command module pilot Michael Collins orbiting the moon, while mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin were to enter the landing module and descend to the lunar surface.

Armstrong landed the module in the Sea of Tranquility.

NASA's official account stated that the flight plan called for the first moon walk to begin "after a four-hour rest period, but it was advanced to begin as soon as possible".

"Nonetheless, it was almost four hours later that Armstrong emerged from the Eagle [lunar module] and deployed the TV camera for the transmission of the event to Earth," NASA said.

According to the tale told to Col, Aldrin told Armstrong he wanted to be first to step on the moon.

"You see, the story goes that Buzz's father - also named Edwin - was an understudy to Robert Goddard - the father of rocketry in the US in the 1920s and '30s."

Col said Edwin senior never felt like he received his fair share of recognition.

"Here was Buzz about to emulate him - second as always."

Armstrong and Aldrin, the tale goes, had a dispute over who would go first.

"Armstrong said, 'I am going' and began suiting up," Col said.

"This threw the whole schedule out of whack.

"The moon was between receiver stations Goldstone and Honeysuckle. Radio waves travel in a straight line, so the bulge of the Earth was cutting off Goldstone and the moon was just coming into view, very low to the horizon, at Honeysuckle."

The TV picture of Armstrong coming down the ladder was "awful", Col said, adding it was "made worse because we only had black and white low-definition TVs in Australia".

"But it was unbelievable to hear those classic pronouncements: 'The surface appears to be very, very fine grained, as you get close to it. It's almost like a powder'. And then, 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind'.

"All this time, the Dish was down as low as it could possibly go. Dr John Bolton and his crew inside were aware of high-velocity winds outside the 64-metre telescope."

Dr Bolton sent all unneeded staff from the building and "gave the other operators the choice to stay or go, as the wild winds buffeted the structure from every angle".

"No one moved," Col said.

"Contact was made and the link changed from the Honeysuckle feed to the Dish. The picture quality improved drastically."

Col will head to Parkes on Saturday to visit the Dish and mark the 50^th anniversary of the moon landing.

Five years ago, Buzz Aldrin admitted that he pushed to be the first man on the moon.

In a discussion on the website Reddit, Aldrin was asked: "How did you guys decide who would walk on the moon first? Was it always going to be Neil from the beginning or was there some rock, paper, scissors' matches to decide?"

Aldrin replied: "I felt that there was an obligation on my part to put forth the reasons why a commander who had been burdened with an enormous amount of responsibility and training for activities [should not go first].

"In all previous missions, if someone, a crew member, was to spacewalk, it was always the junior person, not the space commander.

"We knew this would be different because two people would be going out. There was a group at NASA who felt the junior person (me) should go out first, but many people felt the great symbology of the commander from past expeditions or arrivals at a destination. The decision that was made was absolutely correct as far as who went out first, symbolically."

As the launch neared, speculation mounted in the press that Aldrin would be the first man on the moon.

This was because of the precedent set by the Gemini program.

As Aldrin said, during those flights, the commander stayed inside the ship and the pilot did the space walking.

Plus, the press knew Aldrin was lobbying to be the "first man".

Three months before lift-off, NASA announced that Neil Armstrong would be the first man to walk on the moon.

The main reason NASA gave was that Armstrong had a clearer path to the exit of the lunar module, once the hatch opened.

NASA also said that Armstrong was the more senior ranking member of the duo.

Some have speculated that NASA wanted Armstrong to have the honour rather than Aldrin because they believed his ego could handle it better.

Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21 hours, 36 minutes on the moon's surface. Armstrong walked on the moon for two and a half hours, Aldrin for one and a half hours.