The Wireless

As a small boy I remember that at my Grandparents house there was a quite large pole erected adjacent to the house and another next to the bike or petrol shed about 20 metres away. It depended who was speaking as to whether it was the petrol shed or the bike shed. My grandfather always referred to it as the petrol shed for obvious historical reasons but my uncles had used it as the shed and workshop for their motor bikes and all the paraphernalia was still inside except there were no longer any complete motorbikes. Worn-out motorbike drive chains, sprockets, motorbike frames and wheels adorned the walls. My uncles were now married men with families. Scattered around both inside and outside the bike shed where large Eveready dry cell batteries.

Back to the poles, a wire loosely strung between the poles ended or started at the pole near the bike shed and at the house the wire descended to below the floor level and disappeared under the house. This wire reappeared inside the kitchen from the floor half way along the back wall, where it was attached to a large elaborate wooden box. This box was of highly polished timber veneer and a fancy cloth insert set in the front, above this cloth was a glass panel covering a dial with a double ended pointer and many markings, there were just two knobs below the dial. And oh one of those large Eveready batteries, connected with twisted wires, sat beside it.

This was the "Wireless" although I rarely actually heard it, you see those large Eveready batteries were very expensive and did not last very long, but I do remember my grandmother listening to Blue Hills on the ABC (hear the signature tune: http://aso.gov.au/titles/radio/theme-from-blue-hills/clip1/)

As I grew older I realised that the Wireless was the only means of direct or immediate communication or service of any kind from the rest of the world. In fact my Grandparents house had no connected services at all. There was no electricity, lighting was by kerosene lamps, cooking on a wood fired stove, no running water, just tanks for rainwater, washing by hand and in the wood fired copper, no telephone, no sewage, and an outside pan toilet, it was called the lavatory.

Grandfather buried the contents of the pan down over the side of the hill and refused to use the lavatory himself so as to not contribute to the contents of the pan. He would pick up some paper and go for a walk. I always understood that these walks were by himself and while most other times I was welcome to come along where ever he went, when he picked up some paper, I was to stay behind.

Mail was collected 3 km away twice a week and the nearest shops were 15 km away in town where I was soon to live.

My earliest memory of our house in Aberdare are along the lines of, we had electricity, three phases whatever that meant, running water and we had a sewered toilet, albeit it outside. The neighbours at No 86 had a pan toilet, down the back yard and the dunny man (oops sanitary collector) came along the back lane each week and exchanged the pan for a new one all freshly coated with some black tarry substance.

"What has four wheels, is horse drawn and flies?", "The dunny cart of course" and oh boy did it pong.

We had a "Wireless" as well only it had an electrical cord with a three pin plug and was connected to the only power point in the dining room. Just like at my grandparents there was a pole at the back of the house and a loosely strung wire to a pole at the shed. No it could not have been the shed because the two sets of clothes lines ran right across the yard between the house and the shed. Anyway there was a wire for the "Wireless", eventually I came to understand that the wire was the aerial for the "Wireless".

I still did not get to hear the wireless play very often, the culture of the farming life prevailed and listening to the radio was not an established custom. Dad would turn it on when he came home from work to listen to the news. He would fiddle with the dial "tuning in" the station, fiddle with the volume control and lots of crackling would be heard but little by way of decipherable news. Dad would get up and go and check the aerial, the twisted connection at the back of the house, the little insulators from which the wire was suspended from the poles and the connection at the back of the "Wireless".

More knob twisting, more crackling, a bit of cursing and it would be switched off again, "The news will be over anyway" he would say. The next thing it would be on again, the highly polished timber veneer case having been pulled into the room to expose the working in the back. Dad would feel each valve so see which one was not hot and the turn on the "Wireless" again to see if all valves showed signs of life by it glowing. Sometimes the peering in the back would reveal that the piece of string that wound around the back of the tuning knob and attached to the crescent shaped section of a pulley wheel on the tuner was broken. "Ah no wonder I cannot get anything, the bloody tuner is not connected" as if it was the fault of the tuner itself.

If a valve was not getting hot or glowing it would carefully be removed and compared to the stock of yet untested valves that had been collected from old "Wirelesses". If a valve that looked similar with the right number, size and placement of pins could be found it was inserted in place of the "dud"

"Raymond, that thing never works. I don't know why we pay for the licence if we can never listen to it." "It will work, it just needs a new valve and I will get a better piece of string for the tuner." "Well put it back in its proper place, tea is ready and the kids are hungry."

Yesterday I counted the number of "Wirelesses" in my house, well "Wireless" devices. There is:

The radio, it uses wireless telegraphy, it is the original "Wireless" and I hear it every day, the one in the living room, the one in the car, the little one in the bedside draw or the Radio channel on the TV (no I don't listen to that but it is there).

The TV, television has been around for 56 years now in Australia. I heard the other day, 50 years of NBN broadcasting. Does that mean it uses broadband? What is narrowcasting? It exists check it out.

The remote for the TV, the DVD, hey this may be truly wireless, they are not connected to any wires.

The remote for the Garage door. Another truly wireless device?

· I have a Wireless Keyboard and Mouse and a Bluetooth mouse for my Wireless Notebook Computer.

· My Mobile phone, it too must be a "Wireless" and of course there is the Cordless Phone, there are actually three handset for it.

That brings me to my Wireless LAN, that's the Local Area Network, it connects to my Wireless Notebook computer to the Internet and to the Wireless printer.

I thought that I had them all but suddenly realised I have a navigator in the car "Turn right in 500 metres at the traffic lights" "Railway crossing in 250 metres", "Do a U turn when possible". Bloody thing even knows where I am.