To celebrate World Radio Day, the National Film and Sound Archive has published a recording that will take listeners back to 1944. Hear an extract of an ABC radio program about how the technical side of radio worked during the Second World War. Entitled A Day in the Life of a Radio Technician, it features Stanley Coath, who had a long career in Melbourne radio from his start in 1936 until his retirement in 1973.

“When I was a small boy I was always interested in anything where the wheels went around,” Stanley relates at the beginning of his oral history interview recorded for the NFSA in 1995.

His son recently told the NFSA that his father built his own portable radio and on trips to the beach a crowd would gather around the radio to listen to the latest cricket scores.

The extract published on the NFSA blog page to celebrate World Radio Day begins with a description of the central place of the radio switch room. There is reference made to wartime activities, and the clip concludes with an anecdote about an outside broadcast at a test cricket match in Melbourne.

Visit the NFSA page to see more historical photos, listen to the audio and read the full background to Stanley Coath’s story.

Various aspects of Australian radio can also be explored at the NFSA through the collection, research publications and galleries online. Readers can also explore images of vintage sound equipment in the collection on Flickr.

The National Film and Sound Archive is one of the Australian Radio Industry’s great assets. radioinfo encourages our readers to support the NFSA and also remember to send them samples of your programming occasionally so it can be preserved for future generations.