Radio Comes to Australia

 Special thank you to the Wavescan staff for sharing this week's edition of nostalgic radio in Australia

Jeff: In the early 2000’s, our editor-in-chief, Dr. Adrian Peterson, wrote a series of articles under the strapline ‘Reminiscing with a Radio’, about his recollections of early radio listening in Australia.  Just over 20 years ago in March 2006, one of these articles was titled ‘Australia Gets Radio.’  Here’s Ray Robinson in Los Angeles with that story.

Ray: Thanks, Jeff.  Adrian’s own personal memories of radio broadcasting in his hometown of Adelaide immediately after the end of World War II in 1945 prompted him to write about events 27 years earlier, immediately after the end of World War I.  He wrote:

The war was over, troops were returning home, families were reuniting, difficult restrictions were progressively lifted, and technological development for peaceful purposes was resumed.  This was the scene in Australia, and in many other countries also, at the beginning of the era when wireless became radio.

During the war, the annual Royal Perth Show, always held in the autumn, was temporarily discontinued, “for the duration”.  This popular event was reintroduced just before the end of the war and it attracted huge crowds of eager spectators.  On the occasion of this first (almost) post-war show, wireless experimenter Wally Coxon staged a public demonstration of radio broadcasting with a transmitter in one pavilion and a receiver in another.  The year was 1918, and this was the first public demonstration of radio broadcasting in Australia.

In the Eastern States, the first experimental radio broadcasting transmitter was constructed just four months after the first direct wireless communication from England to Australia.  The enterprising Ernest Fisk was the Managing Director of AWA, and Fisk invited William Bostock, a decorated war veteran who had recently returned to “civvy street”, to head up the project.  Work began to build a radio transmitter in early 1919, using the newly available Marconi “Q” valve imported from England.  Bench tests were made from this new transmitter during the month of March, and then it was ready for wider experimentation.

One of the main uses of wireless transmissions had been for ship-to-shore communications, and so it was decided to install the new radio transmitter on a ship.  There was a fourteen-year-old single-stack interstate passenger/cargo vessel plying the Australian coastline at that time called the “Riverina”, owned by Huddart Parker of Melbourne.

Arrangements were made for the “Riverina” to carry the new little “Q” transmitter during its regularly scheduled voyages for a three-week series of seaborne test transmissions.  These test broadcasts took place during the month of April, 1919.  The output power was around 10 watts, and the operating frequencies were in what are now designated as the longwave and medium wave bands.  These experimental broadcasts were successful, although of course, there were very few receivers capable of tuning in to the informal programming.

 At the same time, there was another single-stack steamer plying the Australian coastline – the fifteen-year-old “Bombala” owned by Howard Smith, also of Melbourne.  A second series of test transmissions using the same “Q” transmitter was carried out in July of 1919.  Clear signals were heard over the salt water pathway at a remarkable distance, even as far away as Gabo Island, more than 300 miles south of Sydney.

Having proven the concept, the next event needed was a genuine public demonstration, and that was soon in the making.  Ernest Fisk announced that he would address the Royal Society of New South Wales on Wednesday evening August 13 (1919) and that he would present a live radio program as a practical demonstration of the new radio medium.  This event, as a historic first in Australia, was staged in the Royal Society’s Hall at 7 Elizabeth Street in Sydney.  A series of some twenty locally-constructed loud speakers with tin horns were all connected to the same receiver and strung from the ceiling.  The “Q” transmitter was installed at AWA Wireless House (at 97 Clarence Street in those days) and the sixty foot long “T” type antenna was strung on the roof of the same building.  The programming for this first auspicious occasion consisted entirely of gramophone recordings played into a carbon microphone.  At the appropriate timing during the Fisk speech, the National Anthem came through suddenly and dramatically; a clear demonstration that radio without wires was indeed a reality.  The transmitted signal had traveled in the heart of old Sydneytown from one main street to another covering a distance of about half a mile.

Meanwhile, down in Melbourne, AWA was planning another series of dramatic radio events.  It should be remembered at this era, that Sydney was the larger city, but Melbourne was assuming political importance as the de facto capital of Australia due to the fact that the Federal Parliament was headquartered in this city.  (The Australian Capital Territory, ACT, and the city of Canberra had not yet been surveyed.)  Two Marconi speech transmitters were imported from England and one was installed in the Brighton home of the local AWA manager, Lionel Hooke, with a simple antenna in the family garden.  This unit came on air with a special broadcast to the Federal Parliament which was meeting in Queen’s Hall, Melbourne.  The date was Wednesday October 13, 1920; the receiving aerial was installed on the roof of Parliament House; and the loud speakers were the ones with tin horns from Sydney.

AWA conducted many promotional test broadcasts in the Melbourne area during this period.  The 500 watt transmitter was transferred from Hooke’s residence to another suburban residence, that of engineer Sydney Newman in Canterbury.  At this location, the familiar callsign 3ME was introduced.  In fact, AWA in Melbourne registered a series of callsigns ranging from 3MA – 3ME.  Station 3ME was installed at the permanent fixed location of Canterbury, but the others were apparently used at various temporary locations for demonstration test broadcasts using another 500 watt Marconi transmitter.  These two transmitters, twins from Chelmsford in England, were rated at less than one “horsepower”!

At this stage, the AWA callsigns in Melbourne became quite prominent, in fact more prominent than the similar series in Sydney, 2MA – 2ME.  In particular, the Melbourne callsign 3ME was soon afterwards transferred to Braybrook where it identified a shortwave transmitter co-sited with 3LO.  It was not until AWA began a series of international shortwave broadcasts from Pennant Hills near Sydney that the 2ME callsign became better known than the southern sister 3ME.

Throughout the five-year period from early 1919 to late 1923, the number of radio broadcast programs, and the number of radio broadcasting stations, all experimental and mostly amateur, began to proliferate, mainly in Sydney & Melbourne, though also in other cities as well.  In Sydney there were 2CM & 2MB; in Melbourne 3ME & 3DP; in Brisbane 4CM & 4CH; in Adelaide 5AH & 5BN; and in Perth 6AG; plus a host of others that came and went as well.  In fact, there were so many amateur broadcasters on the air in Sydney for example that the newly-launched “Wireless Weekly” established an evening rota for all amateur broadcasting stations in an effort to reduce interference.

As a result of all of this amateur broadcasting activity, it became evident that Australia needed a regular licensed broadcasting system.  In 1923, two organizations in Sydney applied for broadcast licenses, and construction work on both was carried out simultaneously.  The first on the air was 2SB, followed soon afterwards by 2FC.  Test broadcasts for 2SB began on October 19, 1923 with the use of another hurriedly constructed 10-watt transmitter.  This unit was installed in the Smith’s Weekly building in Phillip Street and the amateur callsign, 2HP, was transferred from William MacLardy’s suburban location to the new facility in the city.

This new radio broadcasting station was officially opened on November 23, 1923, with a new 500 watt transmitter operating at lower power under its official callsign, 2SB.  This call was changed early in 1924 to the more familiar 2BL.  Similar officially licensed radio broadcasting stations were soon afterwards inaugurated in each of the other state capitals throughout Australia.

Back to you, Jeff.