Geographic Collection – Australia
Whale Stranding at King Island and the Local Radio Scene
Adrian Peterson takes a look at the history and local radio scene on King Island, off the northern coast of Tasmania, Australia.
Tasmanian Whales Stranded Again, and Four Mediumwave Stations
We present another story of two more mediumwave stations on the island of Tasmania; two double commercial stations (7UV & 7AD and 7DY & 7SD) in country areas to the north of the island.
The Radio Scene at the End of the Highway: Cooktown Part 2
This is our second topic on the radio scene at Cooktown at the end of the highway in Cape York Peninsula, at the far north of coastal Queensland in Australia. Unexpectedly, Cooktown was the second largest town in Queensland at the height of the nearby gold rush in the 1880s. Back then, the state capital Brisbane had a population of 50,000 and Cooktown had a population of 30,000.
3XY and the Falling Door
Back on April 19, 1944, there was a military parade through the downtown streets of Melbourne city with soldiers marching, a musical band from the Royal Air Force playing, and aircraft flying in formation overhead. A prominent announcer from radio station 3XY, Alwyn Kurts, was in one of the accompanying aircraft and he was describing for listeners what he was observing in the parade on the city streets below.
The Radio Scene at the End of the Highway
The July (2022) issue of the Australian DX News presents an interesting story about plans for an amateur DXpediton to the Grassy Hill Lighthouse overlooking the small northern town of Cooktown, at the end of the highway in far northern Queensland. This readable feature article reminds us that there have been three different eras associated with the radio scene in Cooktown.
Radio Station 2CM: The Very First Radio Broadcasting Station in Australia
According to radio historians, the very first radio broadcasting license in Australia was awarded to Charles Maclurcan due to his regular Sunday evening broadcasts over experimental amateur station 2CM. The program content for each weekly broadcast was published in a radio magazine in advance, and each program was avidly followed by anywhere up to 5,000 listeners each week.
Lighthouse Radio in Australia
The second lighthouse in the waters of South Australia was constructed on Althorpe Island in 1879, and in 1925, the appointed lighthouse manger took his own informal amateur radio equipment ashore with him. He communicated with mediumwave broadcasting station 5CL in Adelaide, and conveyed his appreciation for the broadcast of their radio programming…
The Radio Scene on the World’s Largest Private Property
The world’s largest property in private ownership was Victoria River Downs with its almost 16,000 square miles of cattle country, some 500 miles south of Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia. In the year 1879, the South Australian government awarded the concession to two men, Englishman Charles Fisher and Australian born Maurice Lyons, who developed the land together as a cattle ranch…
Mount Bellenden Ker tower and cable car mark 50 years of broadcasting from the clouds
It is considered one of the most stomach-dropping cable car rides in the country, but this ride is not for tourists. High above the rainforest in far north Queensland, the bright red cable car carries workers to one of the most hostile environments of any broadcasting sites in the world.
AWA in Australia: Snowy Mountains Radio
The Snowy Mountains Scheme involved the hydro-electric generation of electric power and the down stream irrigation of water for use in farming areas. The Barren Jack Hydro-Electric Scheme was a significant part of the over all Snowy Mountains Scheme which was the largest engineering project in the history of Australia. The name Barren Jack was the nearest English pronunciation for the Aboriginal name of the area.
AWA Radio Station Callsigns
The 1927 issue of the AWA Radio Guide contained a wealth of collected radio information that was not available anywhere else back then. AWA [Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd], was a mega-radio organization in Australia that was founded one hundred years ago and it welded together British, German, American and Australian radio companies, in the same way as RCA [Radio Corporation of America] welded together in the United States similar American and European radio companies.
Three International Radio Weddings
The first international radio wedding in our program today took place in Perth Western Australia on Saturday October 2, 1926, and it was described at the time as the first radio wedding in the history of Western Australia. Back during that era, many radio weddings were broadcast live on radio in many parts of the world, and they were sometimes described as a publicity stunt to gain an increase in listenership.
Feedback on “4AT Atherton” Story
Our feature “4AT Atherton”, on the history of that Queensland, Australia, station generated some interesting email correspondence that Al Kirton of Radio 4KZ, and Radio Heritage Foundation supporter, forwarded on to us. We think it is worth sharing.
Making Waves – Coast FM Tasmania
Wynyard on the coast of Tasmania is a picturesque and quiet place to put down roots (writes Nyasha Oliver). “We don’t even have any traffic…
75 Years of 7LA Launceston
On the 13th of December 2005 radio station 7LA in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia, celebrated 75 years of broadcasting.
Western Australian Telecommunications History
We recently came across this web page which has some interesting snippets regarding the history of broadcasting in Western Australia: https://oldaustraliantelephones.weebly.com/misc-wa-telecomms-history.html#f This is part of…
South Australian Radio Memories
Enjoy these two CDs from our archives looking back at radio in South Australia in the 1950s…
Warren Fahey Presents Yesterday’s Australia
A Collection of Early Australian Radio & Musical Hall Nostalgia This collection of CDs was donated to the Radio Heritage Foundation by Warren Fahey. Click…
The Early Days of 2KO Newcastle
The material used in this history has come from scrapbooks and transmitter logs held by 2KO, photos and documents provided by the families of Jim Cowan, Ken Greenhalgh, Max Spitzkowsky, Harold Whyte and previous staff members Rob Cornwell, Ron, Dorothy and Len Daley, Reg and Judy Davis, Ron Hurst, Roy Nielson, Russell Thornton and Allan Whyte.
ABC Radio Darwin 8DR on Shortwave
After Cyclone Tracy devasted the Northern Territory city of Darwin in Australia, authorities turned to shortwave radio to help coordinate the mass evacuation of the city.