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"Wavescan" is a weekly program for long distance radio hobbyists produced by Dr. Adrian M. Peterson, Coordinator of International Relations for Adventist World Radio. AWR carries the program over many of its stations (including shortwave). Adrian Peterson is a highly regarded DXer and radio historian, and often includes features on radio history in his program. We are reproducing those features below, with Dr. Peterson's permission and assistance.
Wavescan N701, July 31, 2022
Radio Station 2CM: The Very First Radio Broadcasting Station in Australia
According to radio historians, the very first radio broadcasting license in Australia was awarded to Charles Maclurcan due to his regular Sunday evening broadcasts over experimental amateur station 2CM. The program content for each weekly broadcast was published in a radio magazine in advance, and each program was avidly followed by anywhere up to 5,000 listeners each week.
Charles Dansie Maclurcan was born in Brisbane, Australia on August 2, 1889. His mother Hannah was an accomplished business woman who managed the family hotel businesses throughout her entire life, and she was also a specialist cook who produced and published a whole series of annual cooking and recipe books. Her first husband died young, and likewise her second husband (Donald Maclurcan, father to Charles Maclurcan) died young also.
After his many years of schooling, Charles Maclurcan took employment in electrical engineering, and he early showed an interest in the unfolding development of wireless and radio. Together with his sister's husband, Cyril Lane, they established a radio/wireless company in Sydney in 1910, for which an experimental amateur station, XDM, was built.
This wireless station XDM was installed on the roof top of the family's two storied Wentworth Hotel on Lang Street in downtown Sydney, from which frequent wireless contact under the callsign LMX was made with shipping in nearby Sydney Harbour. Two radio masts were installed on the flat roof, and as an interesting addition, Maclurcan also installed a model railway system underneath the wireless aerials.
In later years, Charles Maclurcan revealed that he had a hidden motive back then for his early emphasis on wireless and radio development; he wanted to impress a particular girl. However, the girl was not impressed, and she later married somebody else, though young Charles did continue to develop his avid interest in radio.
During the year 1912, 23 year old Charles Maclurcan went on a tour of Europe. However, while he was away, a fire destroyed the wireless equipment on the roof of the Wentworth Hotel, which almost spread to the entire hotel itself. The roof top wireless station was never rebuilt.
During World War I, Maclurcan was permitted to continue with the further development of his wireless experiments, and together with his many official radio contacts, he was the only amateur radio station in Australia that was still permitted on the air. His wartime duties were conducted in cooperation with the Australian army, and for this purpose he was granted the honorary rank of Major.
The belligerent animosities of World War I ended at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month (Monday, November 11) in 1918, and during those four years of tragic human events over in Europe, wireless had become radio. With a somewhat unsteady peace on the horizon, radio was seen in the post war era as an excellent medium for the mass communication of entertainment and information, and, as we know, that was the coming new direction for program broadcasting.
In September 1920, the Australian government removed all wartime restrictions, and amateur radio operators were permitted back on the air once again. At the same time, business enterprises were giving serious consideration to establishing radio broadcasting stations in the major cities throughout the continent.
In fact, at that stage, amateur radio stations were encouraged to provide programming for the public interest, entertainment and information, and that is exactly what Charles Dansie Maclurcan observed as the direction for his amateur radio station. He began his well-planned 90 minute Sunday evening programs during the following year, 1921, a little more than one hundred years ago.
At that stage, Charles Maclurcan was already married to Winifred Josephine Kenna of the nearby Sydney suburb of Homebush, and they already had three sons, the youngest still an infant. They were living in the parental home "Namanula" in Agnes Street, in suburban Strathfield, and 32 year old Maclurcan began his 90 minute Sunday night broadcasts over longwave station 2CM, with just 7 watts on 214 kHz.
The electronic equipment was installed upon a bench at the side wall of their garage, and the two wooden masts were standing on a vacant property adjacent to their suburban home. At the end of each broadcast, Maclurcan would sign off with the adage: Don't forget to wind up the clock and put the cat out. Or perhaps occasionally: Don't forget to wind up the cat and put out the clock.
On Sunday evening, March 18, 1923, 19 year old actress Josie Melville was a guest in the Maclurcan home in Strathfield, and she was coaxed, in spite of her reticence at the microphone, to sing two pieces of music, apparently unaccompanied. One was Look for the Silver Lining, which you heard as our opening music in this program, sung by Marion Harris from the same era as Josie Melville. There are no known recordings of Josie Melville singing, one hundred years ago.
After nearly four years of broadcasting his very popular Sunday evening programs, Charles Maclurcan made his final broadcast over 2CM on Sunday evening, February 17, 1924. There were already half a dozen radio broadcasting stations on the air in Australia and several more were in the planning stages.
Radio broadcasting station 2CM was no longer needed, and in any case, Charles Dansie Maclurcan was packed and ready to make a voyage to the United States. From then onwards, station 2CM was just another amateur shortwave communication station, like so many others in Australia.
During the following year (1924), some of the 2CM radio equipment was incorporated into the first transmitter that was taken into use by the commercial station 2HD, that was inaugurated by Harry Douglas in Hamilton, Newcastle on January 27, 1925.
Radio entrepreneur Charles Dansie Maclurcan, 2CM, died in Sydney in 1956 at the age of 67, and he was acknowledged and appreciated for his contribution to the development of wireless and radio in Australia in the earlier years.
It was Prime Minister Billy Hughes who signed license number 1 for station 2CM. As a result of his support for the station, and its ultimately worldwide impact on radio broadcasting, the Australian government took an action, stating that Maclurcan's 2CM had provided a unique and needed radio broadcasting service in the era just before regular broadcasting stations became airborne, and in honor of the original station 2CM, this callsign must never be issued again.
Now actually there was another radio station in Australia with the callsign CM, though this other CM station was 4CM, in Brisbane, Queensland, and it played a part in the development of television. But, that's a story for another day.
Unusual Radio Antennas
Back a hundred years ago, Charles Maclurcan, with his amateur radio broadcasting station 2CM in suburban Sydney, was looked upon as one of the great leaders in the radio world in Australia. Interestingly, on one occasion he decided to play a lurk, with a touch of humor, upon his radio world friends, and this is what happened.
At his suburban home, "Namanula," in Agnes Street, Strathfield, Charles Maclurcan connected the down lead from his radio antenna to the fixed copper ball that was floating on the surface of the water in his bathroom toilet system. Another short wire lead was connected from the copper ball to his radio receiver. As a result of this unusual experiment, Maclurcan reported excellent radio reception from many nearby and distant radio and wireless stations.
A multitude of other amateur and professional radio experimenters in Sydney, and beyond, got into the act and they performed the same experiment, with the floating copper ball connected between the outdoor antenna and the radio receiver in the home. And would you know it, they also all reported excellent reception from many nearby and distant radio and wireless stations!
In the April-May 1935 issue of the American radio journal, Short Wave Listener, writer and experimenter H. Townsend wrote a full page article, outlining his experiments over the past many years, in the usage of various different items as an antenna system for his radio receiver. The following page in the radio magazine depicts an artist's presentation of several of Townsend's suggestions in outline form.
(In actual reality, we would suggest that this article in the Short Wave Listener by H. Townsend was written by Don H. Townsend, Jr., who lived at Fallon in Nevada. He often provided radio news and information for publication in the radio magazine Short Wave Listener, which was published every second month.)
These days we would look upon most of the items that Townsend and others used as an antenna system as simply a novelty issue, though he did what many others were doing at that time; experimenting with what they had, to see how well it worked. Townsend lists 10 novelty antenna usages, and we choose seven of these items here in this presentation in Wavescan.
1. Bed Spring - Many young men have used the bed spring they sleep on as an antenna for their radio receiver. For some it was simply convenient, and for others it was a way to avoid parental oversight of what they were listening to on their radio receiver.
2. Downspout - In earlier years, it was a common practice to solder together the sections of the downspout that conveys water from the roof top to the ground. Using the downspout could provide an extensive area of metal roofing as a receiving antenna.
3. Electrical system - This one can be dangerous. Do not connect the electric wiring in your house directly to your radio receiver. This connection can be made, but you need a special item of equipment to do so.
4. Copper ring - Actually, Townsend in his article on unusual antenna systems refers to a copper ring, or a copper ball, similar to what Maclurcan in Australia used in duping his radio friends. However, Townsend states that the short lead from the copper item to the receiver is also acting as an antenna.
5. Pie tin - This is a simple one. If a clean aluminium pie tin is placed underneath the old style house telephone, then the pie tin tends to act as a collector of radio signals from the wiring of the house telephone system. A short lead from the pie tin transfers the incoming radio frequency signal to the radio receiver, plus all of the local interference as well.
6. Kitchen stove - The old style metallic wood-burning kitchen stove can also act as a radio antenna. Of course, you need to be aware of the high temperature of the stove when it is in use.
7. Doorway screen - The metallic mesh in a doorway screen can also act as a radio antenna. This can be highly directional for the reception of mediumwave stations, and opening or closing the doorway screen can increase or decrease the signal strength in the reception of an incoming mediumwave station.
In the usage of any all of these novelty antennas, Townsend does not state the superiority of one above another. He simply states that over the years, these items have been used experimentally by many different radio enthusiasts, mainly as a fun thing to see what happens, though sometimes as the fulfillment of a need.
Townsend also mentions three more experimental usages:
8. A wire fence, which we will refer to in Wavescan next time.
9. Using the earth as a receiving antenna (another time in Wavescan).
10. A tree, which we have presented on previous occasions here in Wavescan.