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The assembly lines in the Quantity Production Works, Ashfield, NSW during WW2. Domestic radio production was heavily limited during the war years in favour of military production. 100 Years of AWA By KEVIN POULTER Australia’s biggest & best electronics company It’s now 100 years since the formation of Amalgamated Wireless Australasia Ltd (AWA), the most significant and important radio company ever to exist in Australia. Here’s a quick look at those early years. AWA WAS FOUNDED in 1913 by Ernest Thomas (E. T.) Fisk, later known as Sir Ernest Fisk. Fisk’s career began earlier in England as a humble newspaper seller on a railway station in Middlesex. He subsequently graduated in engineering in the works of Frederick Walton, then joined the British Post Office as a wireless telegraphist. It’s interesting to note that Fisk’s early drive, determination and business directions were similar to Thomas Edison’s. Edison also started out by selling newspapers (on a train) before going on to work in telegraphy. Radio-telegraphy was introduced into England by Marconi in 1896. At 12  Silicon Chip that time, it was accepted that spark transmitters broadcast over such a wide spectrum that only one radio channel was possible world-wide! Marconi’s work inspired Fisk to join the Marconi training school in 1906, learning Morse and wireless telegraphy, then qualifying as a radio engineer and operator. In 1909, he went to work for American Marconi, initially demonstrating wireless to Newfoundland sealers and on the St Lawrence River. This was then followed by a stint at Marconi’s headquarters in London. Wireless in Australia Wireless communication was of- ficially recognised by the Australian Commonwealth Government in the Wireless Telegraph Act of 1905. Initially, wireless telegraphy was only used on warships. Then, in 1906, C. P. Bartholomew erected an experimental station at Mosman near Sydney, establishing communications using equipment he built himself. The growing potential of wireless in Australia soon attracted the Marconi Organisation’s interest. As a result, Fisk was briefly despatched to Australia in 1910 to demonstrate Marconi apparatus. At about the same time, the first association of “Wireless Experimenters in the British Empire” siliconchip.com.au The AWA logo style was little changed over the years. Sir Ernest Fisk with early “wireless” equipment. Fisk founded AWA in 1913. The valve radios made by AWA and other manufacturers kept an army of servicemen clothed and fed. This Manly-based Woodward’s Radio Service van circa 1946 had a rear canopy that was custom-built to resemble a console radio. was established in Sydney as “The Wireless Institute of NSW”. The founder, George A. Taylor, was also involved in the development of wireless telegraphy, eg, between the front and the rear of a train and between trains running at full speed. It’s fair to say that the few transmissions at that time were mainly by amateur enthusiasts. The Federal Government, acting on a report from Admiral Henderson, subsequently invited tenders for the construction of a wireless telegraph station in Sydney and another in Perth – each to have a daylight range of 2000km. Fisk returned to Australia in 1911 to again promote the Marconi equipment but unfortunately for his company, a contract was subsequently signed with the lowest tenderer, Gesellschaft fur drahtlose Telegraphie System (Telefunken) of Berlin, for the construction of these stations. Engineers and apparatus were shipped from Germany and the stations were erected during 1912 and 1913, one at Pennant Hills in Sydney and the other at Applecross near Fremantle. When the SS Titanic sank in 1912, shipping companies quickly realised that “wireless” had the potential to avert similar disasters. This generated renewed interest in further installations and during 1913 and 1914, a number of smaller stations were erected around the Australian coast at Melbourne, Hobart, Mt Gambier, A selection of 1930s AWA radios in bakelite cases: at left is a C87 AWA Fisk Radiolette circa 1932, while at centre are two Fisk Radiolette Empire State radios from the mid 1930s. The set at right is a Radiola R52 Big Brother circa 1938. siliconchip.com.au July 2013  13 AWA at war: testing transportable transmitters and power units for military ground stations during 1943. Above: valve-manufacturing during the 1920s. AWA manu­factured many thousands of pre-war domestic radios. Above: record cuttting lathes at AWA’s Ashfield plant in January 1947. Port Adelaide, Esperance, Geraldton, Roebourne, Wyndham, Port Darwin, Thursday Island, Port Moresby, Townsville, Cooktown and Brisbane. AWA formed A technician at an AWA-equipped transmitting station in the 1920s. 14  Silicon Chip Based on this expanded interest, Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd was formed in 1913 with an injection of 140,000 pounds of Australian and English capital. Ernest Fisk was a foundation director and was also the General and Technical Manager. He was subsequently appointed as AWA’s Managing Director in 1916. siliconchip.com.au Below: assembling AWA Fisk Radiolette “fret and foot” radios, circa 1936. Photograph by Max Dupain. Radiotron Valves being made at AWA’s Ashfield plant during 1939. AWA made vast numbers of valves, both for their own radios and for many other radio (and later TV) manufacturers. Photo: Max Dupain. Below: a technician works on AWA’s first prototype TV receiver. AWA was one of Australia’s biggest manufacturers of TV sets during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Following its launch, AWA immed­ iately purchased existing and future patent rights for the Marconi and Telefunken systems. During WW1 (1914-18), AWA developed and manufactured equipment for the Australian mercantile marine and for British vessels built in Japan and China for the British Ministry of Shipping. The company was also involved in intercepting wireless messages from enemy ships in the Pacific and eventually from European stations in Germany, Italy, France and England. For example, wireless signals from siliconchip.com.au Germany were intercepted in 1917 at the Naval Wireless Station in Applecross, WA. These intercepts often provided valuable intelligence. England to Australia In 1918, just before the end of the war, AWA received a series of test messages from the Marconi Trans-Atlantic Station at Carnarvon in Wales, UK. These experiments were completed on September 22, 1918, when the first direct wireless message from England to Australia was received at Wahroonga near Sydney. Eleven months later, on August 13, 1919, the first public demonstration of wireless telegraphy occurred in the Royal Society’s building in Sydney. Another demonstration was made on October 13, 1920 in the Queens Hall of the Federal Parliament House in Melbourne. The Government took years to decide what to do with wireless. From 1905-1915, the administration of the Wireless Telegraph Act was in the hands of the Federal Postmaster-General. Then, in 1915, it was transferred to the Minister for the Navy before beJuly 2013  15 Above: the 1947 AWA Radiola 510M. This 5-valve dual-wave set was housed in a bakelite cabinet and was available in ivory, jade green and walnut. Released in December 1957, AWA’s Radiola Transistor 7 was the first completely Australian-made trans­ istor radio. It featured a 7x5-inch loudspeaker and had a claimed battery life of 300 hours. Earlier transistor radios in Australia were made using sub-assemblies and parts from overseas or were fully imported. ing returned to the Postmaster-General in 1920. Radio broadcasting Built in York St, Sydney, by AWA as its head office in 1939, Wireless House with its 48.5-metre steel tower was the tallest building in Sydney until the 1960s. 16  Silicon Chip With the advent of broadcasting in 1923, a large number of Marconi School graduates entered the field of radio, occupying positions as service mechanics, as technicians at broadcasting stations and in sales. George Taylor continued to play a leading role. On May 24, 1923, he chaired a conference of all parties interested in wireless broadcasting in Melbourne. A provisional scheme was adopted involving the use of sealed sets, whereby listeners could only hear the one station that their set was tuned to. After a trial, this (rather silly) idea was discarded, as people clearly wanted a choice of radio stations. The scheme finally adopted was designed to give full freedom in the establishment and running of broadsiliconchip.com.au An advert for AWA’s portable C25 Radiola Super (Sports Model). This 6-valve superhet receiver was first manufactured in 1925. The AWA C54 console – a 6-valve battery-powered TRF receiver from 1929. Photo: Leith Tebbit. casting services, while avoiding the evident problems that had arisen with American and English broadcasting. This included concessions by the Government to persons or firms in order to establish broadcasting on a competitive basis, licensing of private individuals to transmit for experimental purposes, and allowing others to use wireless apparatus for receiving any services. It also involved licensing manufacturers and traders to deal in “wireless apparatus” for broadcasting purposes. In 1926, Fisk wrote: “Private Wireless Stations are now allowed under licence from the Postmaster-General, but all public wireless communication in and from Australia is controlled by a company in which the Federal Govern- ment appoints a majority of Directors and holds a majority of the shares. “The Amalgamated Wireless Ltd must by the terms of the agreement under which it exists remain a British concern, not connected with any trust or combine. It will erect and operate (a) Main Power Stations for direct service with the United Kingdom, (b) Feeder Stations connecting the main stations with the Federal and State capitals, (c) Coastal Stations, where required, to maintain communication with vessels off the coast, and (d) certain stations in Papua and the neighbouring Islands. “It will also arrange the provision of stations in the United Kingdom and Canada capable of maintaining direct communication with Australia. The rates will be, roughly speaking, 2/3 of those charged for cable messages. Existing Commonwealth Stations are taken over”. In 1927, a “beam” service between Australia and Britain was inaugurated, undercutting the cable companies. Then in 1928, the Australia-Canada service began, followed in 1930 by an Empire radio-telephone service. In 1931, the great radio pioneer, Marconi, was made godfather to Fisk’s fourth son, David Sarnoff Marconi Fisk. Fisk was appointed Chairman of AWA in 1932, yet another major achievement for a one-time newspaper seller. This was also the year that AWA Manufactured in 1947, AWA’s up-market Radiola 611T 7-band receiver was housed in a timber cabinet & tuned from 540kHz to 223MHz. siliconchip.com.au July 2013  17 The bank of transmitting valves at the Marconi Wireless Station, Carnarvon Wales, used for direct communication with Australia. became the first company in Australia to introduce a bakelite cabinet radio, the Radiolette C87 Cathedral and GE 40 (AGE) version. Fisk knighted Knighted in the Coronation honours of 1937, the now proudly-Australian Fisk joined many societies and clubs and a number of influential boards but still found the time and energy to continue promoting the wireless industry. In the early 1940s, Fisk envisioned a boundless future for wireless. He said that it even raised hopes for an international language and that he saw the possibility of using it to communicate with the dead (he had always been interested in spiritualism)! By 1944, AWA had 6000 employees and a turnover exceeding four million pounds, making it one of Australia’s most powerful organisations. That same year, Fisk stepped down from AWA to become Managing Director and Chief Executive of the Electrical and Musical Industries (HMV) group in London. He subsequently returned to Sydney in 1952, working as a consultant in commerce, industry and technology. Growth & turmoil During the 1920s and 1930s, AWA made virtually everything in-house, including screws, resistors and foil capacitors but after WW2, the latter were mostly sourced from IRC and Ducon. AWA’s in-house manufacturing supplied a massive range of parts for Radiola domestic radios, transmitters, instruments and equipment. The company also became the industry supplier for valves of all types, TV pic- AWA manufactured a wide range of test equipment, both for internal use and the general market. This solid-state audio oscillator covered from 10Hz-30kHz. Photo: Graham Parslow. 18  Silicon Chip ture tubes, image orthicons for video cameras, semiconductors, quartz crys­ tals, integrated circuits (ICs), tuning gangs, press-button tuners for radios (especially car radios), TV turret tuners, all types of switches, vibrators, emergency lighting components, transformers (power, audio & isolation etc), EHT transformers and deflection coils for TV sets, ballasts, coil sets for radios (IF, RF, oscillator, aerial and tuning coils) and loudspeakers of all shapes and sizes. AWA also had some of the largest specialised injection moulding presses in Australia. Bakelite moulding was a speciality and included control knobs and cabinets for radios, telephone handsets and various parts for Sunbeam and Hotpoint appliances. In addition, their machine-shop produced all sorts of metalwork, including radio chassis, component parts for tuners, switches and lighting, brackets and special screws and nuts that were unique to AWA. Those products intended for use by AWA in-house were branded “AWA”, while those supplied to other manufacturers were generally sold under the “MSP” label (Manufacturers Special Products), eg, loudspeakers. In the year before the Whitlam Government removed tariffs in the 1970s, AWA manufactured approximately 975,000 loudspeakers. Along with domestic radio and TV manufacture, AWA continued to grow their product range in the 1950s and siliconchip.com.au An AWA radio-equipped ambulance circa 1946. The telephone-style handpiece was housed in the glovebox. beyond, with devices such as 2-way radios, transistors, ICs, telephones, avionics and test gear. Sir Ernest Fisk had guided AWA though a minefield of political and commercial challenges, to be one of the most successful Australian companies ever. It was often said that because AWA made all parts in-house, they were exposed to a constant drain on profit and capital. It was an approach that required continuous reinvestment in design, equipment, maintenance, service and more. The winding back of tariffs in the 1970s eventually ended domestic radio and TV manufacture and AWA subsequently experienced a period of turmoil in 1987 when it reported a $49 million foreign exchange loss due to unauthorised trading. This was then followed by years of legal wrangling between the auditors (for failing to identify the trading) and the company. In May 2010, the employee at the centre of the foreign exchange losses, Andrew Koval, was extradited from the United States to face criminal charges. He had previously defended a civil suit in relation to the matter and was eventually given a bond. In 1987, the company was renamed AWA Limited and in 1988 sold its telephone manufacturing and related businesses and closed its main manufacturing facility, Radio Electric Works, at Ashfield. A year later, AWA Computer Support Services was established as an independent business unit. AWA also established AWASCo Pty Ltd during the 1980s. This was a joint venture with Serco Group of the UK and eventually Serco purchased AWA’s share to form Serco Australia. In the early 1990s, unable to compete with lower-cost imports, AWA exited the field of domestic products and consumer electronics to focus on industrial technology. The company subsequently grew its export business to over $90 million per annum by selling its infrastructure systems (traffic control, air navigation and digital microwave telecommunications equipment) to countries such as China, Indonesia, The Philippines and Argentina. In addition, AWA successfully launched a Keno on-line game into over 800 registered clubs in NSW and A No.19 transceiver made by AWA during WW2 for armoured vehicles, including tanks. siliconchip.com.au AWA made telephones for many years. This 1976 ice-blue AWA 800 wall phone recently sold for $366. Victoria (the world’s largest on-line game). It also continued to develop sophisticated technology for the Australian Defence Force. In 1991, AWA acquired Smorgon Technologies, a world leader in totalisator systems. The company subsequently developed and operated state-of-art wagering systems that were installed around the world. The break-up and sale of various AWA divisions in the period from 1994-97 was driven by a decision to maximise the return to shareholders. In 2001, AWA was acquired by Jupiters Limited which itself was soon merged with Tabcorp. Then in 2004, the company was spun off and once again became an independent company. In 2006, AWA acquired Telefix Sales Pty Ltd, which had been servicing home entertainment products since early 1960. Today, AWA employs close to 300 staff, and utilises 700 agents in regional Australia to manage its service obligations to many blue-chip companies. This includes service for: (1) network hardware and ancillary equipment; (2) servers, desktop PCs, laptops, displays, printers and peripherals; (3) specialist equipment such as EFTPOS machines, lottery terminals, digital photo kiosks, health-related technologies and library systems; (4) IP telecommunications and wireless communications; and (5) Home entertainment equipment and home networks. References: John McIlwaine, AWA Veterans’ Archives plus others listed SC at www.aaa1.biz/sc July 2013  19