The Society's Early History

Some who later became club members were among the 27 licensed radio experimenters in Australia in 1911. They include (with callsign)
Frank Leverrier (XEN)
Malcolm Perry (XCP)
R Allsop (XCA)

For further information on the early history of radio licensing in Australia prior to 1929 see the comprehensive article by the late Colin Mackinnon VK2DYM.

• 1920 Licence Application
• Enlargement of the 1920 picture above
• Enlargement of the 1919 picture below
• 1920 Tx and Rx Specifications
• 1922 Inspectors Report on the Coogee Incident
• Club QSL Card from the mid-1920s
• Club QSL Card from 1929 when the VK prefix was first used
• 1940 Full text of Mr Walter's address
• All correspondence between the club and licensing authorities from 1920

Details of the 1940 21st year Re-union dinner

This dinner was held at St Luke's Hall on an unspecified date. At the time key figures were

Patron	Mr F Geddes
President	Mr L Walters
Vice-Pres	Mr D Dunn
Secretary	Mr J Howes
Treasurer	Mr Johnson

and Honorary Life Members were W Ryan, 2TI, G Wells, W Garland with W Moore, 2HZ as the only Honorary Member

Members must have enjoyed their liquor as toasts were drunk to:-

The King
The Founders
The Wireless Institute
Kindred Societies
Radio Inspector, NSW
Amateurs with the Forces

followed by all singing "God Save the King".

Here are some highlights from the after dinner address by Lionel Walters

On 27 January 1919, after World War 1 had ended, a group of young men with an interest in the relatively new science of wireless formed the Waverley Amateur Radio Club. This March 1919 photo shows some of them - click to enlarge. The full list of founding members is :

R.P Charlesworth (President)
Frank Geddes Jr (Vice President)
Maurice Anderson
Eddie Bowman
Alan Burrows
C Doyle
Jack Gordon
Frank Harvey
Les Holsgrove
Eric Lavington
Bill Lawrence
Frank Leverrier
Neville Ruby
Malcolm Perry
E. Swinbourne
Gordon Thompson (remained a member until his death in 2001)
Dan Williams

The club's meetings were held in a room at the rear of Frank Geddes' house at 13 Macpherson St, Waverley, until at least the 1940's. The first licence was applied for in May 1920 and issued to the club on August 18th 1920, with the callsign of N249. It covered a spark transmitter and one valve receiver. In October 1922, after the Post Office took over licencing from Naval Control, the callsign became 2BV (now VK2BV) and wavelengths below 200 metres were were made available to experimenters.

The club's first one valve transmitter was built by Gordon Thompson, Frank Leverrier and Frank Geddes, and "succeeded in spanning the air miles to Campsie" (about 15 km).

Ours was the first club in Australia to broadcast a music program. This was done for the club ball in Coogee, on the 22nd of September 1922. The 'compere', R. Allsop 2YG, got into a bit of trouble from the Radio Inspector, as his licence did not cover that district!

In 1926, the club became affiliated with the Wireless Institute of Australia, the national body representing all Australian amateurs and has remained so to this day.

In 1930, two members of the club had an interest in television. These were Gordon Wells and Mr Pickering, 2KI. Eventually in 1933 the two conducted the first television transmission in Australia, from Mr Pickering's home at North Bondi, to the club rooms at Waverley. This was quite an achievement, considering that commercial TV broadcasting did not begin in Australia until 1956, over 20 years later. The scanning method used was Baird's rotating disc.

The first public television demonstration in Australia was given in 1936 by two club members, Gordon Wells and Maurice Lusby, at a WIA exhibition. The star of the show was Miss Gladys Moncrieff, a well known singer of the period.

As transmitting activities were curtailed during the war, the club secretary, Mr J Howes 2ABS, built a full size motion picture projector and sound system which was used at club meetings.

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