Federation to the End of the Second World War (continued)

A development which was soon to affect most Australians had in the meantime taken place in July 1923, when the first radio broadcasting service in Australia began, using equipment designed and manufactured by AWA, providing a completely new communication service. Both transmitters and receivers were licenced by the Government and initially receivers were made capable of receiving on one frequency only, an arrangement which was short-lived. The service grew quickly from some 64,000 licenced receivers in 1924/25 to over 300,000 in 1928/29, when 20 stations were broadcasting, including eight which were categorised as 'A' class and supported by revenue from licence fees, and twelve were 'B' class, or commercial stations.[18]

Another significant extension of broadcasting came in 1925, when the PMG Department, guided by its newly formed Research Laboratories, provided a four-State land-line relay, using circuits derived over the trunk line network. Relaying soon became a normal part of the broadcasting service and was used extensively by both commercial stations and the national service, which was formed from the eight 'A' class stations, to which four regional stations had been added, and operated by the Australian Broadcasting Commission after 1932. By 1940, the national service involved 26 stations and the number of commercial stations had grown to 100, with a total of 1,212,000 licenced receivers. In 1934 a new initiative saw ABC programmes being broadcast to listeners in outback areas on a short wave service and in 1939 an international service was inaugurated from the same transmitters.

To service the rapidly growing market, AWA began manufacturing receivers as well as transmitters and in 1926, Standard Telephones and Cables (STC, a subsidiary of AT&T, later of ITT, USA), began manufacturing and two years later produced the first superheterodyne equipment in Australia. The growth in the broadcasting service, by providing a much larger market base than available from the telegraph and telephone services, stimulated Australian manufacturing activities in the total communications market and STC began to manufacture magneto telephones in 1927, producing a magneto switchboard in the following year. The onset of the Depression, which resulted in an increase in tariffs, gave an added incentive to local manufacture, with component production by AWA in 1933, followed by Philips Electrical Industries (a subsidiary of N. V. Philips of Holland). STC also extended its activities and by 1939 was producing repeater valves used in long distance telephone systems and high-powered valves for broadcasting transmitters, involving a technology transfer of quite a high order.

Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering