Category Archives: history
Hidden heroes
The BBC have just broadcast and put on YouTube an excellent hour long documentary about two people whose wartime work is credited with shortening the war and saving millions of lives. Yet because of the cold war and the climate … Continue reading
Winnie the war winner
The other day I noticed a very interesting photo on a fellow Australian ham blogger, Peter Mark’s site. The blog entry was titled a “Radio nerd’s tour of Canberra“. The first photo is described as ‘a transceiver with a nifty … Continue reading
Heathkit Genesis
Last week at the Waverley Amateur Radio Society monthly meeting there was a fascinating and well-prepared talk from Justin Lavery VK2CU on the history of the Heathkit company. The scene at the front of the clubroom was not unlike this … Continue reading
Pierce Healy VK2APQ
According to a recent news item on the WIA Pierce Healy VK2APQ celebrated his 99th birthday on 13 August 2010. “Pierce gained his Amateur licence at the beginning of World War 2 but could not get on air at that … Continue reading
Radio bibliography
The Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA) have published a bibliography of sources used in the research on the early history of amateur radio as part of their centenary celebrations. It was compiled by VK2RV and looks like a very useful … Continue reading
Overland Telegraph – 140 years ago, yesterday!
An ABC News story today tells of the celebrations in Darwin this week marking the start of the Overland Telegraph on 20th June 1870 when the South Australian parliament voted to dedicate about half its annual budget to building the … Continue reading
The creator of the Continental code
I stumbled on to a page on Wikipedia about Friedrich Clemens Gerke, (22 Jan 1801 – 21 May 1888) the man responsible for simplifying Vail and Morse’s original telegraphic code. As the wikipedia article explains, “The original Morse code consisted … Continue reading
Samuel Morse’s 219th birthday
Samuel Morse was born 219 years ago. But of course credit for devising the code that bears Morse’s name goes to his assistant (machinist & inventor) Alfred Vail. His birthday is 25th September 1807. This key was built by Alfred … Continue reading
International Marconi Day
Today is International Marconi Day. He was born on this day in 1874 in Bologna.
