What does the GR in 4GR Toowoomba stand for? Or how about the DB in 3DB (now Mix) in Melbourne? Which station in Newcastle was owned by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and closed by the military for four years during World War Two for airing a security breach?

If you don’t know the answer to these questions now, chances are you never will as individual stations are bought up by the big networks and call signs are homogenised across the nation. That’s the fear of Bruce Carty and his mates who recently wrote to radioinfo asking for help saying, “We are a group of volunteers dedicated to the research of early AM radio stations in Australia from 1919 – 1979. Most available history covers the industry as a whole, whereas our research is on a station by station basis”.

Bruce was kind enough to provide copious examples to whet our appetites. The GR in 4GR stands for Gold Radio. It had nothing to do with a “gold” format which wouldn’t be invented for another 50 years or more. Instead it was named for Gold Radio Electrical Service, a local Toowoomba retailer owned by Ted Gold who launched the station in August 1925.

3DB, Melbourne, later became TT-FM (1988) and is now MIX101.1. It opened in the Capitol Theatre in February 1927 and was owned by Druleigh Business College. Among other things, it’s famous for once having rejected a job application from John Laws.

2HD was (and still is) the Newcastle station which in 1941 was owned by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was founded in January 1925 by Harry Douglas with just 12 records in the music library – all on high rotation, no doubt.

While Bruce and his band of radio enthusiasts, who call themselves Radio Yesteryear inc., have unearthed enough material to create a radio trivia board game that would stump Bob Rogers, many stations that they’ve approached have remained uncooperative. “We are trying to contact all stations that are, or have been, on AM. Any historical, humorous or anecdotal information would be greatly appreciated”, says Carty.

Bruce Carty can be contacted through the Radio Yesteryear website using the link at the bottom of this article.

Here’s a few more. 7HO (now HOFM) was the first commercial station in Tasmania. It started with three people in one room (1930) and organised 350 volunteers to make camouflage nets for the war effort (WWII).

The original 5AD, Adelaide (now MIX 102.3) was an experimental station started in 1921. It operated just 2hrs per day, four days per week and was probably the first station to be heard in Perth which didn’t get its own (6BN) till 1923. 6BN closed in 1924 to make way for 6WF (now ABC 720) which was then owned by Westralian Farmers and specialised in ”news for the man on the land” till taken over by the ABC in 1932.

2LF Young gets its call sign from the old transmitter site at Lambing Flats. 3AK, Melbourne (now leased to SEN) was owned by the Akron Tyre Company when it opened in 1931 with the catchcry, “The Voice of the Night” originally broadcasting only between 11:30pm and 7:30am until 1969.

What was the very first radio signal that went to air in Australia? According to Radio Yesteryear it was the demonstration music broadcasts by AWA chairman, Ernest Fisk on 13th August, 1919.