Historical information

The 3AW portable transmitter
“Wirelessing from the Golf Links. An interesting test was made by 3AW yesterday when this portable transmitting set was successfully tried out at Royal Melbourne. Mr JB Ferrier, the father of the NSW champion, who is taking part in the Men’s Australian Open Championship meeting, is seen (on the left) speaking into the microphone and announcing the scores. The transmitter will be in action today to describe the play in the final rounds for the benefit of listeners.” – The Age

Melbourne-based talkback radio station 3AW began transmission in February 1932 as Melbourne’s fifth commercial station. The 1930s were a time of rapid change and significant improvement in the development of microphones, supporting the shift from the visual world of newspapers to the auditory world of radio.

MCK021 Inkjet print by John Gollings on Canson Platine Fibre Rag
Published: The Age 9 September 1933

Featured in "Newsworthy: Melbourne in photographs 1933-1936" exhibition at East Melbourne Library, October to December 2023. Exhibition caption by project volunteer, Louise McKenzie.

Photographer notations on slide: "3AW portable transmitter at R Melb Golf Links 1933 B5"
Published: 9 September 1933 The Age p15
Published title: WIRELESSING FROM THE GOLF LINKS.
Published caption: An interesting test was by 3AW yesterday when this portable transmitting set was successfully tried out at Royal Melbourne. Mr. J. B. Ferrier, the father of the New South Wales champion, who is, taking part in the Australian open championship meeting, is seen (on the left) speaking into the microphone and announcing the scores. The transmitter will be in action today to describe the play in the final rounds of the open championship for the benefit of listeners.
Trove article identifier: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205106453
Note: Interestingly, the published image is a composite of the two images in our collection. See related material, MCK077.

Description: Group of men conducting outdoor radio broadcast at golf course. The 3AW sign is visible on a pole above the group.

Research by project volunteer, Louise McKenzie:
In this photo a group of men cluster around a tall bamboo pole with a 3AW sign. The male radio interviewer holds a pole topped with a square shaped microphone held in front of the face of another man. It is a bleak day and the men are wearing suits, coats and hats, or plus fours and caps. There is one schoolboy in the group. This was 3AW's first outside broadcast, undertaken at Royal Melbourne golf course on the occasion of the Australian Open. The 1933 Australian Open was held at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club (West Course), 8-9 September, and won by M L Kelly, from Goulburn, aged 20; J Ferrier (aged 19 from Sydney) came third equal with A W Jackson.

The man being interviewed was Mr J B Ferrier, father of James (Jim) Ferrier, a professional golfer from Sydney. Encouraged by his father (who had a golfing background in Scotland) Jim Ferrier commenced playing at age four and a half, and was playing off scratch by his mid-teens. He was the NSW Amateur Champion in 1931, and was runner up in the Australian Open in 1931 and 1933. He won many Australian and overseas amateur and professional titles, moved to the US where he served in the army in WWII, and continued to prolifically compete and have significant golf victories into the 1950s. Sport Australia Hall of Fame says his “... may well be the best all round amateur professional record of any Australian golfer”. There is a statue of Jim Ferrier in the National Portrait Gallery.

3AW is a talkback radio station based in Melbourne, which began transmission on 22 February 1932 as Melbourne’s fifth commercial radio station. It was established when a company formed by Allans Music (established in Melbourne in 1850 and by 1877 was the largest musical warehouse in the southern hemisphere), JC Williamson’s (a theatrical management company and theatre owner) and David Syme (then publishers of The Age newspaper) was granted a radio broadcasting licence. 3AW originally broadcast from a makeshift studio in the front part of His Majesty’s Theatre, Exhibition Street, Melbourne, and is still in operation today.

The 1930s were a time of rapid change and significant improvement in the development of microphones, accelerated by the move from the visual world of newspapers, to the auditory world of radio. The BBC had only been formed in May 1923, and their first outside broadcast was in May 1924. It is interesting to note that 3AW was owned by those intimately involved in the music, arts and newspaper world who had a good eye for future developments in these areas. The microphone in use in this photo may have been a USA-developed condenser microphone – still a fairly experimental concept, and whose design may have been influenced by the American film industry.


References:
WIRELESSING FROM THE GOLF LINKS. (1933, September 9). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), p. 15. Retrieved September 14, 2023, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205106453
J.C. Williamsons’s, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Williamson%27s
Allans Music, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allans_Music
Jim Ferrier, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Ferrier
Jim Ferrier sculpture by John Frith, National Portrait Gallery, https://www.portrait.gov.au/portraits/2013.79/jim-ferrier
'3AW is 90 today (22/2/22)', 3AW, https://www.3aw.com.au/3aw-is-turning-90-take-a-look-back-through-the-decades-with-us1/
Her Majesty’s Theatre Melbourne, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_Majesty%27s_Theatre,_Melbourne
Jim Ferrier, Sport Australia Hall of Fame, https://sahof.org.au/hall-of-fame-member/jim-ferrier/
'From Nightingale to Narcissus: capturing the first ever live otudoor radio broadcast', Iain Baird, 2013, Science and Media Museum UK, https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/from-nightingale-to-narcissus/
'The BBC-STC ‘Bomb' Condenser Microphone: a curatorial perspective', Ian Logie Baird, 2021, Baird Television, https://www.bairdtelevision.com/the-bbc-stc-bomb-condenser-microphone.html

Physical description

Glass plate negative

Inscriptions & markings

Photographer notations on slide: "3AW portable transmitter at R Melb Golf Links 1933 B5"