Turn up your radio (Art Deco Australian radios)

[Story]

Old wave ... the Jade Green Empire State Radiolette is consisidered the ultimate AWA art deco radio, even more so if it comes with the matching one tenth-scale cigarette box. Mint examples can fetch $15,000

Turn up your radio
James Cockington | April 18, 2007

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in the art deco movement. Many more converts should be recruited this week, during the staging of the 9th World Congress of Art Deco in Melbourne. Events, including lectures and guided tours, will be held until Friday. For details, see http://www.artdeco.org.au.

Australia plays a significant part in art deco history. Some of the most beautiful radios from this style were manufactured in Sydney by the AWA (Amalgamated Wireless Australasia) company. As testament to the enormous popularity of the radio in the pre-TV period, the AWA building was then the tallest in Sydney, topped by an antenna inspired by the Eiffel Tower. It's still there but these days dwarfed by brutal office towers.

complete article at
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/investment/turn-up-your-radio/2007/04/17/1176696767372.html

 

[Brian Sheridan]

Wow....That radio is a beauty! I can see why it would fetch $15K.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

Somewhat similiar to the much sought after Air King.

 

[ScionPI2005]

I would snatch up a radio like that in a heartbeat if it weren't for the fact that I don't have 15K to spare. Eh, maybe one day...NOT!

Very pretty radio indeed!

 

[Story]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/perspect...ds-the-new-wave/2007/05/07/1178390224389.html

LET us take a short walk through a part of Australia's technology history. Australia doesn't have too many technology companies that are nearly 100 years old but it does have one.

In 1909 German company Telefunken formed a subsidiary in Australia to market a new-fangled technology called radio. Four years later the company merged with the Australian subsidiary of the British-based Marconi company to form Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd, better known as AWA.

Over the course of the 20th century AWA became one of the best-known corporate names in Australia. Its brand names, such as Radiola and Deep Image, were not far behind.

AWA provided the equipment that picked up Australia's first radio broadcast from England, in 1918. It became Australia's de facto international telephone carrier in the 1920s when the Hughes government brought a majority stake and used it to set up an "Empire Radio Telephone" service to connect Australia to Europe and Canada in competition to privately owned submarine cables.

During World War II AWA was virtually an arm of the Defence Department, training radio operators and manufacturing military radio sets. After the war it conducted Australia's first TV transmissions.
*

The boardroom table - complete with small drawers in which the directors kept their cigars - dates back to the 1920s (Billy Hughes, a director for 20 years, used to keep his hearing aid in one of them).

On the wall is the original of a letter recommending a young Italian called Guglielmo Marconi and his wireless telegraph technology to some 19th century British investors.

In the few years since Mr Dougall and Mr Rainbird reinvented AWA, they have managed to double the size of the company. There are now more than 500 employees, concentrated strongly in the computer services area.

The company does hardware repairs for Apple and HP and Cisco. It services the IT departments of companies as diverse as the Commonwealth Bank and Flight Centre. And it is part of the support arm of Dimension Data and Telstra's Kaz Group subsidiary.

AWA's most recent move is to parlay its expertise in consumer electronics into servicing the digital home. A few other companies, Gizmo being the best example, are playing in this space but AWA believes its long experience in the consumer electronics industry, and its Australia-wide coverage, gives it an advantage.