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Electronics in Australia
Jim Rowe’s time at RTV&H and Electronics Australia
In August & September 2022, Silicon Chip founder Leo Simpson covered the
magazine’s history and touched on some of its predecessors: Radio, TV & Hobbies
and Electronics Australia. Jamieson (Jim) Rowe was an important figure at both
magazines, working on and off for them over 40-odd years before joining the Silicon
Chip team. Here is his part of the story.
◀ Editor John Moyle on the front cover of the May
1948 issue of Radio & Hobbies, using a micrometer
to check the thickness of a quartz crystal he was
grinding.
The July 1987 issue of Electronics Australia, when
Jim Rowe returned to head the magazine, after Leo
Simpson had departed – soon to found Silicon Chip. ◀
F
irst, I will give a bit of early magazine history. The first 12-page issue
of Wireless Weekly was published in
Sydney on the 4th of August, 1922. It
was published by W. J. Maclardy, one
of the founders of Sydney radio station
2SB (later renamed 2BL), at the suggestion of Florence Violet McKenzie.
Florence was Australia’s first female
electrical engineer and first female
radio amateur, who owned a wireless shop at that time in the Royal
Arcade (where Sydney’s Hilton Hotel
44
Silicon Chip
currently stands). Ms McKenzie wrote
many articles for Wireless Weekly and
later was awarded an OBE for her work
in founding the Women’s Emergency
Signalling Corps (WESC).
We reviewed her biography, “Radio
Girl” in the February 2022 issue
(siliconchip.au/Article/15203).
By the start of commercial radio
broadcasting in 1923, the magazine
flourished, with issues often over 64
pages. Later in 1923, the magazine was
sold to Wireless Newspapers Ltd and
Australia's electronics magazine
continued to grow until April 1939,
when it was changed into a monthly
release and renamed Radio and Hobbies (R&H).
Initially, the Editor of the magazine was A. G. (‘Braith) Hull, while
the Technical Editor was John Moyle,
who had joined Wireless Weekly in
1932 as a technical writer and record
reviewer. Within 12 months, A. G. Hull
had left to join rival magazine Australasian Radio World as its Editor, while
John Moyle took over as Editor of R&H.
siliconchip.com.au
◀ Neville Williams, who joined
Radio & Hobbies as Technical
Editor in 1941. He became the
Editor of Radio, TV & Hobbies
in 1960 and then Editor-in-Chief
of Electronics Australia in
March 1971.
Jim Rowe pictured at his
typewriter in late 1963, when he
was Technical Editor of Radio,
TV & Hobbies. He remained in
this position when the magazine
became Electronics Australia
in 1965. ◀
Then, in 1941, Neville Williams
joined R&H as Technical Editor.
Later in 1941, John Moyle joined the
RAAF to become an instructor in the
then-highly-secret radar technology.
He remained in the RAAF until 1946,
rising to the rank of Squadron Leader
and working mainly in Melbourne,
where he was made responsible for
the production of all radar manuals.
He visited the R&H office in Sydney
occasionally, where Neville Williams
had taken over as Acting Editor for
the duration.
When John Moyle returned to R&H
in 1946, he became Editor once again,
and Neville Williams returned to the
position of Technical Editor. They
worked together very well, and the
magazine flourished. They developed
and published many designs for radio
sets, stereo hifi amplifiers and monochrome TV receivers, the latter initially using war-surplus cathode ray
tubes and other ‘bits and pieces’.
Later, they published four full-scale
TV receiver projects but stopped when
the prices of commercial TV receivers
dropped to the point where home-built
sets became unattractive.
In February 1955, the magazine’s
name was changed from Radio and
Hobbies to Radio, Television & Hobbies to better indicate its relevance to
the rapidly expanding field of television.
In 1956, John Moyle went on an
around-the-world fact-finding tour,
visiting many places in the UK, Europe
and the USA and meeting many leaders of electronics research and manufacturing firms. He had been an amateur radio enthusiast for many years
and served as president of the NSW
Division of the Wireless Institute of
Australia (WIA) before holding Federal office.
Then, in 1959, he attended the
siliconchip.com.au
International Telecommunications
Union (ITU) conference in Geneva,
Switzerland, representing Australian
radio amateurs.
Originally he had planned to revisit
the UK and the USA after the ITU
conference, but he became quite ill in
Geneva and was advised by a doctor to
return home without delay for urgent
treatment. He passed away in hospital on the 10th of March, 1960. He was
only 52 but had achieved a great deal
during that short life.
This was how his passing was noted
by the Institution of Radio Engineers
(Australia) in their Proceedings for
April 1960:
He was one of the best technical
journalists this country has known;
his lucid thinking and enquiring mind
led him along paths which few of us
have travelled. His journalistic talents
are forever engraved upon the technical pedestal of Australian literature.
slog, but AWA was very good at giving
its trainees a solid practical grounding
in just about every aspect of radio and
TV manufacturing.
I spent a couple of months in the
press shop, a couple of months in
‘mills and drills’, another couple of
months in the plating shop, a month
in the section where they made rotary
switches, a month in the section where
loudspeakers were assembled and
tested, another month in the section
where they made tuning gang capacitors, and a month in the section in
Belmore where they ground and tested
quartz crystals.
It was comprehensive training, but
by the end of 1958, I became restless
at AWA. I was still doing tedious ‘process’ work, like assembling complex
wiring looms for broadcasting transmitters or testing small Army transceivers.
Some personal prehistory
I (Jim Rowe) was born in 1939 (the
same year that R&H began!) and grew
up in South Belmore - then regarded
as an outer western working-class suburb of Sydney. As a teenager, I became
interested in electronics while working on Saturdays for Stan Blackmore,
who ran a radio and TV sales and
repair shop near Belmore station.
When I left high school with my
leaving certificate in March 1957, I was
lucky enough to be accepted as an engineering trainee by AWA (Amalgamated
Wireless Australia), then the largest
radio, TV and electronics manufacturing plant in the southern hemisphere.
In early 1957, I began work as a
trainee at AWA’s main manufacturing
facility in Ashfield and studying parttime at Sydney Technical College in
Ultimo, working towards a diploma
in radio engineering. It was a bit of a
Australia's electronics magazine
The AWA building in York Street,
Sydney was their head office until the
1990s. It was also the tallest building
in Australia until 1958, the same year
Jim Rowe left AWA.
Source: https://w.wiki/6cuL
July 2023 45
At about that time, some of the engineering schools at Sydney Technical
College cut their ties with the College
and moved out to Kensington. They
became part of the newly formed
University of Technology, soon to be
renamed the University of NSW.
The School of Electrical Engineering was one of the schools that had
moved, and although most of my lectures were still held in their Ultimo
building, they had moved some of
their research and teaching labs to a
building on the Kensington campus.
A fellow student (John Barker) who
had gained a job as a lab assistant in
one of the Ultimo labs told me that
they were looking for lab assistants
for some of the Kensington labs. The
pay was not only better than that for
AWA engineering trainees, but that
job also gave me plenty of time to do
homework and course projects.
So I took a deep breath and applied
for one of those positions. I was lucky
enough to get a lab assistant position
in the Servomechanisms and Control
Labs at Kensington. It worked well,
giving me time to do my course homework and teaching me quite a bit about
servomechanisms.
a letter arrived from Mr Williams
offering me the job and inviting me
to front up at the magazine in early
March 1960. So began my first period
of employment with the magazine,
which was to last for almost 20 years.
Unfortunately, when I joined the
RTV&H staff, its Editor, John Moyle,
was already in hospital and died the
following month. So sad to say, I never
even met him. Before long, Mr Williams became Editor of RTV&H.
While I was working at the
Kensington campus, the Uni of Technology became the Uni of NSW. At
the same time, we students in the
Radio Diploma course were offered
the opportunity to transfer into a B.
Sc. (Technology) degree course. It was
with that degree that I finally graduated in early 1963 while continuing to
work at RTV&H.
By the way, after that, I enrolled
in a part-time ‘Arts’ degree course at
Sydney University. I eventually graduated with a somewhat lacklustre B. A.
Introducing RTV&H
About halfway through 1959, I
learned that my friend John Barker
had left the Ultimo labs for a job with
the magazine, Radio, TV and Hobbies.
John told me he was really enjoying
the work at RTV&H, as it was almost
“being paid to do what he would be
happy to do for nothing”.
Not long after that, he rang me at
work and told me that another staff
vacancy was becoming available at
RTV&H. He suggested that I apply for
the job, as he felt sure that I would
enjoy the job as much as he did.
I summoned the courage to apply
and, in due course, fronted up at the
magazine office on the 12th floor of the
Sydney Morning Herald building in
Jones Street, Ultimo for my interview
with the acting Editor at the time, Mr
W. N. Williams.
I found the interview rather daunting because Mr Williams was highly
respected throughout the Australian
electronics industry, having worked
with the famous Fritz Langford-Smith
on the early editions of the world-
renowned “Radiotron Designers Handbook”, the ‘bible’ of valve technology. “Fundamentals of Solid State” was one of the many educational series that Jim
Still, just after Christmas in 1959, Rowe wrote.
46
Silicon Chip
Australia's electronics magazine
siliconchip.com.au
degree in early 1967 [that possibly
came in handy when Jim came to work
for us drawing diagrams – Editor].
Still, I seemed to have ‘found my
niche’ working for RTV&H, and not
long after graduating in electronics,
Mr Williams promoted me to the Technical Editor position. I remained in
that position when the magazine was
revamped and renamed to Electronics
Australia (EA) in mid-1965.
My early days with EA
It was very satisfying and enjoyable
working at RTV&H and then EA during
the 1960s. Neville Williams was a very
experienced, calm and intelligent Editor and leader of the team, and most of
the other staff members were very techsavvy and collaborative. We produced
a great many electronics projects, news
features and technical articles.
Sadly, my friend John Barker left the
magazine at the end of 1960 to pursue greater things. I hope he achieved
them; I am still very grateful that he
helped me join the magazine.
Early in the 1960s, Neville Williams
had written a series of introductory
articles for RTV&H called “Basic Radio
Course”. It was so well received that
some of the other staff members and I
revised and updated the articles, and
they were republished in the magazine
between August 1963 and November
1965.
The demand for back issues containing the articles was so great that we
were encouraged to combine them into
a single magazine-format ‘one-shot’
book called “Basic Electronics Course:
An Introduction to Electronics”, published in 1966. This was also so successful that it had to be reprinted many
times and sold over 55,000 copies.
Then, from June 1966 to May 1967,
I wrote a series of 12 articles on digital
electronics called “Logic and counting circuits”, which was again so well
received that they were published in
1967 as another one-shot book called
“An Introduction to Digital Electronics”.
In 1970, it was revised and expanded
as a second edition. As with “Basic
Electronics Course”, it ended up being
reprinted several times, eventually
selling over 50,000 copies.
I recall that Leo Simpson (later to
become the founder of Silicon Chip)
joined the editorial staff of EA in June
1967.
Starting in about 1968, I wrote a
series of articles in EA titled “Fundamentals of Solid State”, introducing
the basic concepts of semiconductor
devices like diodes, bipolar transistors, FETs, SCRs and other thyristors
– how they operate and how they are
used. In 1970, the articles were published as another one-shot, which
ended up being reprinted several
times, selling around 50,000 copies.
I could not have written the above
series without help from Neville Williams and other staff members like
technical draftsman Bob Flynn.
In March 1971, Neville Williams
was promoted to Editor in Chief of EA,
and I was promoted to the position of
Editor – much to the chagrin of one or
two other staff members.
Designing the EDUC-8
computer
The early 1970s was a time of rapid
developments in electronics and
information technology, with major
breakthroughs in integrated circuits
and computers coming every other
week or so.
So-called ‘minicomputers’ (about
the size of a refrigerator) had just
appeared. As a result, the Fairfax/
Sydney Morning Herald organisation
installed a couple of gleaming new
Digital Equipment PDP-8 minicomputers to begin trialling them for computer typesetting.
The company’s new IT manager,
John Cockram, invited a few people
from various departments to learn
about computers and programming by
attending informal lectures. We could
also gain some practical experience
with the minicomputers during our
lunch hours. I was one of the lucky
few invited to do so, and it gave me
an invaluable introduction to computers, how they worked and how to
program them.
This led me to set myself a personal
challenge: to design a small computer
from scratch, based on what I had
learned about their operation as a user
and beginning programmer. Very few
books were available at that time dealing with the nitty-gritty of internal
computer operation, but somehow, I
managed to meet the challenge.
◀ In the early 1970s, Jim Rowe was lucky enough to get some hands-on
experience programming and using one of the first Digital Equipment PDP-8
minicomputers in Australia, like this one. It inspired him to design the EDUC-8
DIY microcomputer, published as a project in Electronics Australia (there is
still interest in the design to this day).
The EDUC-8 micromputer has a maximum clock rate of 500kHz, five primary
registers and a top power draw of ~60W. You can still purchase the handbook
for this project from our website at siliconchip.com.au/Shop/3/1816
siliconchip.com.au
Australia's electronics magazine
July 2023 47
A ‘humorous’ (?) sketch of a not-toohappy Jim Rowe, drawn in 1973 by
Garry Lightfoot.
I used readily available medium-
scale ICs and designed a set of PCBs
– drawing them the old-
fashioned
way, with pens and Indian ink. With
a go-ahead from Neville Williams,
I described my little “EDUC-8” DIY
computer in a series of 12 articles published in EA between August 1974 and
August 1975.
It became the first DIY computer
project to be described in Australia and
only the second in the world. A bloke
in the USA had described a computer
based on one of the new Intel 8008
microprocessor chips in the July 1974
issue of Radio Electronics.
Still, the EDUC-8 project turned out
to be surprisingly popular. We turned
the articles describing it into a oneshot called “EDUC-8: AN EDUCATIONAL MICROCOMPUTER”, published in 1975 and selling about 2,500
copies [still available as a scanned
PDF download; siliconchip.com.au/
Shop/3/1816 – Editor].
About 400 people built one of the
original EDUC-8s, and improved versions also appeared.
Incidentally, all these magazine articles, projects and one-shot books were
produced using old-fashioned technology. The articles were typed one
paragraph at a time on A5-sized ‘copy
slips’ using clunky manual typewriters, the circuit board patterns were created using stick-on tapes and circles,
and all circuit diagrams were done by
Bob Flynn on paper using pens and
other drawing tools.
This was before the advent of personal computers, after all.
Late in 1976, all of the magazines
in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH)
magazine subsidiary Sungravure were
moved from the SMH building in Jones
Street to a much smaller building a
few blocks away on Regent Street. The
EA editorial office was moved to the
ground floor of the Regent Street building, with magazines like Woman’s Day
and Dolly moving to the upper floors.
The Regent Street building was
much closer to Central Station, which
was a plus for a few of us!
By 1977, we had published quite a
few articles in EA about the rapidly
expanding field of microprocessors.
These had again been quite popular,
so we put them all together as a oneshot book called “Getting into Microprocessors”.
I edited the book, and staff member Greg Swain produced it [the other
founder of Silicon Chip – Editor]. It
was again pretty successful, selling
around 10,000 copies.
Moving on
By the middle of 1979, I had worked
on the editorial staff of EA for nearly
20 years and had been its Editor for
nearly nine of those years. But I was
only 40 and was beginning to feel that
Dick Smith
and Jim Rowe
with one of
the System-80
‘business
computers’,
around 1980.
Jim wrote
the user
manuals for
the System-80
and also some
programs for it.
48
Silicon Chip
Australia's electronics magazine
I would be stuck in that position for
the rest of my working life.
Earlier that year, I had become
friendly with entrepreneur Dick
Smith, whose rapidly growing retail
electronics firm had become the magazine’s largest advertiser. Dick was just
about to move his firm’s headquarters
and warehouse to a brand new facility in North Ryde, and in July 1979,
he sent me a letter inviting me to join
his firm as Technical Manager/Director (a fancy name for ‘in-house technical boffin’).
He made me a very generous offer of
around twice the salary I was getting
at EA, so I was very happy to accept.
I resigned from EA and joined Dick
Smith Electronics in November 1979.
Although it involved a 55-minute
drive to North Ryde each weekday, and
the same time to drive home, I enjoyed
working at DSE. Dick had assembled a
dynamic team of employees, including General Manager Ike Bain, Marketing Manager Gary Johnston, Service Manager Gary Cratt (founder and
director of Av-Comm) and many other
good people.
Dick Smith himself was a ‘human
dynamo’ – working very hard and
encouraging everyone else to do so. He
was also very generous in sharing his
enthusiasm and enjoyment with us all.
Part of my job at DSE was getting
samples of products from overseas
that were good potential products to
sell in Australia, then testing them to
see if they really were suitable. In the
case of minicomputer products like the
Exidy Sorcerer, System 80 and VZ-200,
once they were ordered, I usually set
about preparing readable user and servicing manuals.
I also wrote several user manuals
for PC applications software: a word
processor, a stock control system, a
simple invoicing system and others.
In 1982, I was involved in writing
and publishing the book “Dick Smith’s
Fun Way into Computers”, in collaboration with external writer Sue Robinson. Over 30,000 of these were sold.
I also designed what became the first
300-baud direct coupled data modem
to be approved by Telecom for private
sale (up until then, only acoustically-
coupled modems had been approved).
Over 3000 of these low-cost ‘Dataphone’ modems were sold.
It was hard work for the first three
years, but very satisfying and rewarding. However, things started to change
siliconchip.com.au
when Dick Smith sold a 50% share of
the business to retailing giant Woolworths. At first, the changes were not
dramatic because Dick had to stay at
the helm for a year, to ensure that the
profits continued to rise.
When that did happen, Woolworths
bought the remaining half of the business and Dick departed. His deputy Ike
Bain took the reins, but Ike didn’t have
the same energy or talents as Dick.
At almost the same time, Marketing Manager Gary Johnston resigned
and left, to put into practice all of the
knowledge and skills he had learned
from Dick. He bought the almost
defunct electronics retailer John Carr
and Sons and soon resurrected it as
Jaycar Electronics. And with Gary at
the helm, it quickly grew into the very
successful and profitable electronics
chain it is today.
When Gary passed away in March
2021, the Jaycar Group operated over
180 stores throughout Australia and
New Zealand and also had quite a few
‘agencies’ selling their products.
After Gary and Dick left DSE, I was
foolish enough to take on Gary’s position as Marketing Manager. I soon
found that I couldn’t cope with the
pressure it involved.
At that time, DSE had its own
in-house marketing and advertising
production departments. There was
not only a staff of 23 people to manage (including Ross Tester, who later
moved to Silicon Chip), but advertising to plan and produce each week.
There was also a huge annual catalogue to plan and produce.
It soon became clear to me that I
had none of the talents of Dick Smith
or Gary Johnston, as I ‘wilted’ under
the strain and decided that I needed
to depart.
Above: the Dataphone
is a direct connection
telephone modem. It
was sold by Dick Smith
Electronics in the mid
1980s for $169 each.
Right: Dick Smith
Electronics also sold
imported minicomputers
such as the VZ-200
produced by VTech Laser.
Jim Rowe would normally
go about testing the
products and producing
user & servicing manuals.
Moving to Federal Publishing
In late 1984, quite by chance, I met
Leigh Emery, who was at the time
General Manager of a company called
Federal Publishing. It was owned by
siliconchip.com.au
The February 1985 editorial of ETI was written by Jim Rowe, as the previous
Managing Editor, Collyn Rivers, had recently departed.
Australia's electronics magazine
July 2023 49
a trio of companies: Eastern Suburbs
Newspapers (owned by the Hannan
family), Consolidated Press (owned by
the Packer family) and Fairfax/SMH.
Among various other magazines,
Federal had acquired EA’s chief competitor, Electronics Today International (ETI), its sister magazine Your
Computer and Sonics, a magazine for
the pop music and recording industry.
When Leigh realised that I was out of
my depth at DSE, he asked me to think
about joining Federal as managing editor of those three technical magazines.
The Managing Editor of ETI, Collyn
Rivers, had departed, and they were
already having problems with the new
Editor of ETI, Roger Harrison.
Rather foolishly (with the benefit
of hindsight), I decided to take up his
offer and began working at Federal/
ESN in April 1984, at their facility in
Rosebery.
I soon realised that things would
not be easy: I would not be working
for the very reasonable Leigh Emery,
because shortly before I arrived, he
was fired following a disagreement
with Michael Hannan, the Managing
Director. Instead, I would be answering to a pair of accountants.
It was all pretty much downhill
from there, although things did look
up when Geoff Baggett joined Federal
as the new General Manager.
While I was there, though, two quite
significant things happened. One was
that both Fairfax and Consolidated
Press sold their shares in Federal to
the Hannans, so Federal became a
wholly-owned subsidiary of Eastern
Suburbs Newspapers.
The other thing was that Fairfax
sold Electronics Australia to Federal
Publishing. I think this was because
Neville Williams had retired, and
Fairfax management had difficulty
dealing with the Editor who had
taken my place at the magazine: Leo
Simpson.
I was given the responsibility of
moving my old magazine and its staff
to the Federal Publishing campus in
Joynton Avenue, Rosebery, and then
managing it and the other three technical magazines.
I found it easy to get on with Leo
and the other EA staff members, with
whom I was already familiar, but
it wasn’t so easy dealing with the
problems concerning the other three
magazines. In fact, the situation soon
became just as fraught as the one I
50
Silicon Chip
had left at DSE. By October 1985, I
was fired/asked to resign from Federal Publishing, which was a relief
because the situation had become so
difficult.
And on to MicroBee
After spending about a month unemployed at home, licking my wounds
and doing some much-postponed jobs
around the house, I was invited to join
the home-grown Australian personal
computer company MicroBee Systems, by its Chairman and Managing
Director, Owen Hill.
The company had just been floated
on the stock exchange, and Owen
wanted me to join as Publishing Manager to look after the writing, printing
and publication of their hardware and
software manuals. He even flew me up
to their bustling West Gosford factory
to show me around and convince me
that the offer was genuine.
Since I was currently without a
job and we had a large mortgage and
a family to feed, I took the job at
MicroBee. But things began to deteriorate not long after I started work at
the MicroBee office and warehouse
complex in North Ryde (just down the
road from DSE).
The Marketing Manager departed
after a disagreement with Owen Hill,
and as a result, I became Communications Manager – responsible for marketing and advertising as well as publishing manuals.
Soon after that, the company began
having serious problems, especially in
developing the new computer models necessary to ensure its future success. This seemed to be at least partly
due to Owen Hill frequently revising
the specifications for the new models, forcing the design people to ‘go
back to the drawing board’ over and
over again.
In the meantime, the marketing people and I were having a harder and
harder battle to achieve sales of the
somewhat dated computer models the
factory was still producing. Gradually,
staff numbers had to be reduced to
lower overheads, and the company’s
link with its advertising agency had to
be terminated. So I had to write, lay out
and book the company’s ads myself.
The North Ryde warehouse and
office also had to be closed, and the
remaining staff and myself were
moved to the rear of MicroBee’s store
in Waitara. But things continued to
get worse, and before long, the board
brought in a ‘company doctor’ (Mr
Ron Bunt) to try and save the company
from oblivion.
When I had my interview with Mr
Bunt, he told me that the company was
probably “doomed” and suggested that
I look elsewhere. So I took his advice
and did so.
Luckily, a colleague from the early
days at EA, Dick Levine (who had been
Editor of the short-lived EA offshoot
Modern World), was by then Editor
of the electronics trade publication
Electronics News. It was part of the
IPC Business Press stable. When I told
Dick I needed to jump from the sinking
MicroBee ship, he offered me a job as
a technical journalist for his magazine.
It didn’t pay nearly as much as my
jobs at DSE, Federal Publishing, or
even MicroBee, but it would allow
us to eat and pay the mortgage – just!
It was quite pleasant working with
Dick Levine and his crew on Electronics News, and I was able to ‘lick my
wounds’ once again and more or less
recover my self-confidence after the
MicroBee ordeal.
However, that didn’t last very long
because there had apparently been a
series of confrontations at Federal Publishing between MD Michael Hannan,
The MicroBee
‘Computer-in-a-book’
system was one of the
products developed
by MicroBee in
the 1980s. Source:
https://w.wiki/6cue
Australia's electronics magazine
siliconchip.com.au
his bullying General Manager Bernie
McGeorge and Leo Simpson – who had
been promoted to my old position after
my departure.
Leo had then departed with some
acrimony to plan the startup of Silicon Chip, and many of the remaining
staff of EA were planning to join him
when it began publication.
As a result, I was approached first
by the General Manager of FPC, Geoff
Baggett, then by his very amiable personal assistant Cassie Bailey, both of
whom tried to talk me into returning
to Federal to save EA from extinction.
Leo had told them, as he departed,
that I was probably the one person
who could do this, although he didn’t
think they would be able to convince
me to return after my previous very
unhappy time there.
Leo was right – I didn’t want to
return, and told them so, despite the
financial strain we were experiencing
trying to live on my modest earnings
at Electronics News. However, after a
week or two, I received a phone call
from MD Michael Hannan himself,
asking if he might call into our home
in Arncliffe that night, to try to talk
me into returning.
I warned him that I was unlikely to
be convinced, but he was free to try if
he wished. He did visit at about 7pm,
and we had a ‘full and frank’ discussion for about three hours. I found out
later that he had not been home for his
evening meal. The result was that we
finally agreed I would go back and try
my best to keep EA going.
Returning to Federal
Publishing
Around the middle of June 1987, I
returned to ESN/Federal Publishing,
then located at Bourke Road, Alexandria, next to the large ESN printing
works. I then began rebuilding EA –
finding new staff and working with
them for long hours to keep EA coming out every month and hopefully
to increase its reader appeal as well.
We must have been reasonably successful because we managed to keep
EA profitable for the next 12 years or
so, despite several major challenges.
One of these was a disastrous fire
in mid-1988 that destroyed half of
the Federal Publishing building and
caused a lot of water and smoke damage to the EA offices and lab. We had
to keep working while they rebuilt
everything.
siliconchip.com.au
But the main and ongoing challenge
was the very strong competition from
Silicon Chip, which Leo Simpson had
started publishing in November 1987
with most of the former EA staff.
By the middle of 1999, the situation
had become more difficult. Advertising revenue was falling along with
drooping readership, despite our best
efforts. As I had just turned 60, Federal
management decided I should ‘retire’
from full-time work on the magazine
and be replaced by one of the younger
staff members.
So Graham Cattley inherited the role
of Editor, but I kept writing and working for EA as a ‘Contributing Editor’.
This situation continued for the next
year or so, with muggins still doing
almost as much work as before but
doing it from home. However, with
me ‘out of the loop’, the magazine was
redesigned to supposedly make it more
appealing to a broader and less technical readership.
Unfortunately, this revamp didn’t
work, and the magazine closed down
in early 2001, after a run of around 62
years as a monthly publication. So I
was out of a job once more, along with
Graham Cattley, Technical Editor Rob
Evans and others.
Luckily for me, I was able to keep
earning a modest living by working for
Gary Johnston’s firm, Jaycar Electronics – mainly writing ‘how-to’ technical booklets.
Before long, Leo Simpson asked
me to draw circuit schematics and
other diagrams for Silicon Chip. As
time passed, I was also able to design
electronic projects, write them up and
have them published in Silicon Chip.
I have continued drawing diagrams,
Jim Rowe pictured at his desk at
Federal Publishing in late 1989, when
Electronics Australia had moved into
a new building after the disastrous
fire in 1988. You can see the employee
car park under construction through
the window.
but my article contributions for the
magazine have transitioned mainly
to reviews and technology feature
articles.
This ‘working from home’ arrangement has worked well for around 21
years and will hopefully let me keep
earning a living for the next year or
two. Thanks to the internet, there’s no
need to commute to the Silicon Chip
office at Brookvale, as everything can
be moved back and forth via emails
and FTP.
So there’s much less stress than
before, and as a bonus, I get to have
morning coffee, lunch and afternoon
tea almost every day with my dear
life partner Laraine. What more could
SC
you ask?
The “Low Cost 1GHz Frequency Counter” project was published in the April
1993 issue of Electronics Australia. It was developed by Jim Rowe and was
meant as the ‘big brother’ to EA’s 50MHz Frequency Counter.
Australia's electronics magazine
July 2023 51
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