The Historical Radio Society of Australia Auctions and Activities Sydney

Sydney Group Activities

With the Covid restrictions situation, the past year has sure been difficult to plan our group HRSA meetings, with many clubs unable to hold meetings.
Fortunately the Sydney group has been holding swap meets outside the school hall in recent times.
Hopefully we can look forward to some normality in the months ahead.

The Sydney group meets the first Saturday of alternative months starting from February 6th.

The ACT Canberra group meets on the other alternative months January, March, May.
I understand the May meeting will be in Goulburn.

The alternative meetings in Sydney and Canberra thus provides a monthly meeting for members to attend and caters for those living in outer areas.

At this stage our next Sydney meeting will be a Swap Meet outside the hall on April 3rd from 8.30am.

We hope to resume the following meeting on June 5th back inside the school hall from 8.30am.

John McIlwaine

Sydney Group Programme

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Sydney Group Notes by John McIlwaine

Our October 2020 meeting again a busy day for the Sydney Group, following a welcome to members and visitor’s member Ray Robinson gave a presentation of a unique small powered aircraft transmitter used on the Catalina Sea Plane aircraft which saw service in WW11.

Ray obtained a unit which he displayed and explained the electrical and intricate mechanical details of the transmitter with a detailed slide presentation of the unit.

John thanked Ray on behalf of the members for his enlightening and informative presentation.

A lively member’s auction followed again with many more radio offerings from a deceased estate with many radios at bargain prices along with early valves and component parts.

The passing of another Wireless Pioneer
Sadly we record the passing of Philanthropist John Hooke CBE in November 2018 at the age of 85.

John the only son of Sir Lionel Hooke, in his passion for exploring and discovery, John followed the example of his farther, Lionel Hooke, a wireless operator of the Marconi Company in 1913 who at 19, also an employee of AWA, joined Sir Ernest Shackleton’s crossing of the Antarctica as a wireless operator on the Aurora in 1914.

Morse code messages saved the expedition, making contact with the outside world after the explorers were trapped in an ice field for eight months.

John spent his life exploring frontiers, as a young man in 1954 working at AWA, he screened the FIRST EXPERIMENTAL TELEVISION BROADCAST in Australia from the back of an old Arnott’s van.

Later, he provided the Signal that relayed the First Moon Landing.

Following the death of his farther Sir Lionel Hooke in 1974, John succeeded him as the chairman and chief executive of AWA, during his career, John Hooke directed companies including BHP, National Bank, AMP General Insurance and Channel 10 in Sydney. He was also chairman of Tubemakers of Australia.

In his retirement from AWA ,John who held degrees in both engineering and science from the University of Sydney provided a $5 million gift to the University in 2011, helping to establish the "University of Sydney Nano Science institute" and provided funding for the John Hooke Chair of Nanoscience.
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