Although Australia's first officially recognised experimental broadcast was made in 1905, there are reliable reports in September 1897 of demonstrations of wireless communication in Australia conducted by Professor William Henry Bragg of Adelaide University following experiments by Bragg, and at some stage in conjunction with G.W. Selby of Melbourne.
1911: The Maritime Wireless Co. Ltd sold to The Maritime Wireless Company Limited
1911: Australian Government employs their own wireless expert to build the coastal wireless service after interests representing Telefunken didn't perform to the governments satisfaction on the first 2 at Sydney and Perth - Graeme Balsillie
1911: Balsillie contracts the Maritime Wireless Company Limited to manufacture all the apparatus for the remaining 17 wireless including the generators and motors
1911: The first long range coastal radio station was established in Sydney.
1912: The first Coastal wireless station opened in Melbourne
1919: The first radio "broadcast" in Australia was organised by Ernest Thomas Fisk of AWA on 19 August 1919. He arranged for the National Anthem to be broadcast from one building to another at the end of a lecture he'd given on the new medium to the Royal Society of New South Wales.
1920-1929
1921:
*Amateur radio broadcasters commenced transition. The first radio licence in Australia was granted to Charles Maclurcan for station 2CM, which broadcast from the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney, an establishment owned by the Maclurcan family. Broadcasts consisted of classical music concerts on air on Sunday nights.
1922:
* December, "The Regulations: radio laws for the amateur" was issued by the Australian Government. This resulted in Australia's first broadcast licence being issued to Charles MacLurcan in December 1922. ref "Australian Radio History".
1923:
*Following intensive lobbying for the introduction of radio broadcasting, the Government, in May 1923, calls a conference of the main players in the radio manufacturing industry. This led to the sealed set regulations where stations could be licensed to broadcast and then sell sets to "listeners-in". The receiving device would be set to receive only that station.
*2SB in Sydney is the second official station to be licensed. It commenced service on 23 November 1923. Sydney's first official station, 2FC with Licence No.1 commenced service on 9 January 1924.
1924:
*3AR and 3LO went to air on 26 January and 13 October 1924 in Melbourne.
*The Government introduces a two-tiered licence system in July 1924. In the first half of 1924, only 1400 people took out sealed set licences. It was quite easy for listeners to avoid the licence fee by building their own sets or modifying one they had bought to receive more than one station. The radio industry successfully lobbied the Government to introduce a two-tiered system, the "A" licenses to be financed by listeners' licence fees imposed and collected by the Government, and "B" class licenses to be offered to anyone else who wanted to have a go. The B stations would have to generate their own revenue through advertising. A class stations could also advertise but few did. This system was an amalgam of the British system where the non-commercial BBC had a government-imposed monopoly and the USA where the free market was the driving force. The "A" class stations were the original sealed set stations plus one in each other capital city - 2BL, 2FC, 3AR, 3LO, 7ZL, 5CL, 6WF. By years end, 40,000 licences have been issued. At this time, there was also talk of the introduction "C" class stations which would exclusively advertise the products of the station owners. This concept was abandoned in 1931, but the Postmaster-General's Department was already in talks with the Akron Broadcasting Co. Pty. Ltd in Melbourne, and, so, in lieu of a "C" class license Akron was given a 'B" Class license with some severe restricting conditions.
*The first "B" class station on air was 2BE in November 1924.
*South Australia’s first radio station 5CL went to air on 20 November.
*Western Australia's first radio station 6WF went to air on 4 June.
1925:
*The oldest surviving "B" class station is 2UE, which went on air on Australia Day 1925 as 2EU. The reputed reason for the change of callsign is that EU sounded like "Hey, You".
*3UZ Melbourne begins broadcasting
*South Australia’s first commercial radio station 5DN goes to air 24 February.
*AWA conducts a series of transmissions to Britain. These regular broadcasts were heralded by a kookaburra's laugh - a practice that's still used by Radio Australia today, nicknamed "Jacko".
*3DB Melbourne commences broadcasting
1929:
*2BE closes due to financial collapse.
*The Government nationalises the transmission facilities and contracts the provision of programming to the Australian Broadcasting Company, a consortium of entertainment interests.
1930-1939
1932:
*The Australian Broadcasting Company is nationalised by the Australian Broadcasting Commission Act. This finalised the two-tier system with the national broadcaster, the newly created Australian Broadcasting Commission, having 12 stations, and the commercial sector, with 43 stations. The ABC was funded by listeners’ licence fees until the 1970s, when Federal Government appropriation became the primary source of funding. Initial plans to permit advertising on the ABC were dropped from the final bill presented to the parliament.
*The Sydney studios of the ABC installs a disc recorder, enabling the recording of programs to occur for the first time.
*Many Australian radio stations change frequencies on 1 Sep 1935 to accord Australian 10 kHz frequency raster and to resolve interference problems.
1936: In March, the Bass Strait cable links Tasmania to mainland Australia and permits the ABC to relay national broadcasts to Hobart for the first time.
1939: Radio Australia was formally incorporated as part of the ABC.
1940-1949
1945:
*Hector Crawford Productions, later called Crawford Productions, was founded by Hector Crawford and his sister Dorothy Crawford. They would also run the Crawford School of Broadcasting, which taught radio actors such as Noel Ferrier skills for a radio broadcasting career. Crawford Productions as one of the few companies that successfully made a transition from radio to television.
*The McLean Inquiry into FM rejects the Broadcasting Control Board's views on FM radio and recommends that the VHF FM band be opened to FM radio stations, that a community radio sector be established, and that the ABC have an FM network
*2MBS Sydney commences broadcasting as the first full-time FM station in Australia, playing classical music 24 hours a day.
1975:
*2JJ commences transmission on the AM band in Sydney. Double Jay is the first non-commercial 24-hour rock station in Australia
*3MBS-FM Melbourne commences broadcasting classical music 24 hours a day
*Multi-cultural radio is launched with the formation of 2EA Sydney and 3EA Melbourne
*Public access station 3ZZ is established in Melbourne
*Twelve Australian community radio stations are licensed as an interim move by the federal media minister, Dr Moss Cass. Because the licences may have been technically illegal under the Act, they are dubbed Cass's "Dirty Dozen"
* Brisbane's 4ZZZ is established, the first community FM broadcaster in Australia
1976:
*ABC FM begins broadcasting
*3MP begins broadcasting, the first new commercial radio licence in Melbourne since 1935
* 6UVS begins broadcasting from the campus of UWA, Perth.
1978:
*All AM radio station frequencies are changed from 10 kHz to 9 kHz spacing under the Geneva Frequency Plan of 1975 on 23 November.
*2WS Sydney begins broadcasting
1979
*PBS FM starts regular broadcasts on 21 December from the Prince of Wales Hotel studio.
1980-1989
1980:
*The first commercial FM radio stations are launched: 3EON and 3FOX in Melbourne, 2MMM and 2DAY Sydney, 4MMM Brisbane, 5SSA Adelaide, 96FM Perth
1982:
*7RPH in Hobart becomes the first Radio for the Print Handicapped broadcast service. Other stations soon follow in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide and Perth.
1984:
*Stereo AM radio transmission is launched
1986:
*2UE Sydney and 3AK Melbourne launch the experimental CBC Radio Network, a networked talk-back format
*Sydney's Triple J begins expansion to other capital cities
1990-1999
1990:
*3KZ Melbourne converts from AM to FM. Other stations to convert include 3TT Melbourne, 4BK Brisbane, 6PM and 6KY Perth, 5KA and 5DN Adelaide.
*May 19, 1990, Australia's first S39 supplementary FM Station goes to air in regional Australia as 2VM Moree Launch 2NOW on 98.3 From Mt Dowe in North West NSW.
*Commercial FM commences in Hobart
*3AK becomes Australia's first Italian-language commercial radio station
1991:
*Melbourne radio station 3XY signs off after 56 years of broadcasting
1992:
*8DN Darwin has its licence revoked for breaching the ownership conditions of the Broadcasting Act
