ROMANCE OF RADIO

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 895, 12 February 1930, Page 8

ROMANCE OF RADIO

? WHAT AUSTRALIA HAS ACHIEVED - SIX YEARS OF PROGRESS t i f With 1930 * here and six years passed since the inception ot brcrad«asting in Australia, it will be Inter-k-sting for listeners to note the p.roferess of radio during "that period. Australia is taking full advantage of tile benefits to be derived from wirejess broadcasting and can claim to (take a place among the pioneers of this spectacular development of the Science. ‘ In June, 1920, the Marconi Company gave the first actual broadcast concert from its experimental' valve station at Chelmsford. England, and jpnong the artists was the great Australian prima donna Dame Nellie Melba, whose voice was heard a considerable distance across the Atlantic and in many ..parte of Europe. The jccund important broadcasting demonstration given at the Imperial Press Conference at Ottawa, in August, i 920. h In the same month, August, 1920, Mr. E. T. Fisk, managing director of the Amalgamated Wireless Company, gave a public demonstration of wireless broadcasting iri Sydney to an Audience of more than one hundred Jit a meeting of the Royal Society of New South Wales. In October of the tame year lie' arranged a-complete public broadcast'Coucert in the Queen’s Hall, Federal Parliament House. Melbourne, to an audience qf sopie hundreds of people. This wiaS the third jarge public demonstration of broadcasting that had taken place in any part of the world. In January, 1921. a weekly broadcast programme was transmitted from Melbourne by AWA. and was heard by experimenters and others at distances up to 1,000 miles. Discussions subsequently took place with the view to devising n scheme which would be suitable to Australian Conditions and be adaptable to the vast territory and sparse and scattered population of the Commonwealth. It was desired that any such Scheme should avoid , the. . monopoly which had been granted in Great Britain, and the confusion and uncertainty of continuity resulting from free broadcasting in the United States. FIRST BROADCASTING STATIONS

Regulations on these lines were issued by the Postmaster-General on August 1, 1923, and two licences were issued to Broadcasters (Sydney), limited, on August IS, 1923, and to Farmer and Co., Ltd., Sydney, on October 26, 1923. The. two stations, +BL and 2FC, were opened for service on November 13 and December 5, 1923, respectively. : Prior to the formation of 2FC, operated by Farmers, and 2BL, operated by Broadcasters, Ltd., Messrs. W. H: Paling and Company, Sydney, under arrangements made with the Post-master-General's Department, carried cut the first series, of public broadcasting concerts. These were held in Paling's Concert Hall between January, 1923, and August, 1923. Three Concerts were held weekly at which the public attended, and in this way

tlie first listeners had an opportunity ,pf hearing the best available talenr. before the official stations were opened. Up to July, 1925, . seven class A stations had been opened, and an eighth was being planned for Hobart. The Amalgamated Wireless Company has manufactured and erected the 5-kilowatt stations at Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, and is completing a 5-kilowatt station at Adelaide . to replace the existing station, while a station is in course of construction for Brisbane. The station equipment, much of which is of a highly technical and specialised character, was made in the company’s works in Sydney, and the excellent workmanship affords a tribute to the skill and efficiency of the company's staff. The nominal range of these stations is approximately 300 miles by day and 1,000 miles by night. This range has, however, frequently been greatly exceeded, and the programmes of the Sydney and Melbourne stations are heard almost every night in all parts of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, and authentic reports have been obtained of reception in Canada, the United States and HongKong. MARCH OF PROGRESS The march of progress in broadcasting in a period of six years is indeed a remarkable one. The clarity of reception in 1929 compared with 192:3 is something to wonder at. The improvement in the broadcasting programmes of 2FC and 2BL, in tile past five years is a promise of what is yet to come with the approach of 1930. The advance of wireless has no compeer in modern inventions. Country is linked with country, news of the world is flashed around in a few seconds. Outback joins hands with the city, passengers on board ship are kept in touch with world events by the uses of radio. There is not a walk in life, not a corner of the world that does not derive the benefits of radio. The evolution of broadcasting is assuredly one of the most romantic of modern inventions.