AWA Limited
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| Founded | 1909 |
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| Headquarters | Homebush West, New South Wales, Australia |
| Website | www.awa.com.au |
Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd (later AWA Ltd) is an electronics manufacturer and broadcaster based out of Sydney, Australia. Throughout most of the 20th century AWA was Australia's largest and most prominent electronics organisation, undertaking development, manufacture and distribution of radio, telecommunications, television and audio equipment as well as broadcasting services.
After the sell-off of most of its assets and operating divisions, AWA is now primarily an information and communications technology (ICT) services company.
The company commenced operations in 1909 as Australasian Wireless Limited (AWL), a Telefunken wireless agent. The first chairman was (Sir) Hugh Denison. (Sir) Ernest Fisk, a foundation director, was general and technical manager. In 1916 he became managing director and in 1932 chairman.
In 1912 when the English Marconi Company sued the Australian government for infringing their patent (and AWL issued writs against firms using Marconi equipment), the government decided in future to use circuits designed by John Balsillie. Eventually the two settled their differences and, in July 1913, formed a new company, Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd, with exclusive rights throughout Australasia to the patents, 'present and future', of both Marconi and Telefunken. Later that year the new entity established the Marconi Telefunken College of Telegraphy, (later renamed the Marconi School of Wireless (MSW)).
In 1918, the first radio broadcast from the UK to Australia was received by AWA with then Prime Minister Billy Hughes praising the troops he has just inspected on the western front. In 1930, AWA transmitted the first newsreel pictures from Sydney to London.
In 1922, the Australian Government, requiring a direct radio service with the UK - in lieu of submarine cables - commissioned AWA to create a service. The government boosted the new company's capital and became its majority shareholder. In 1926, the company established two large beam wireless stations on 180 hectare sites; a receiver site in Victoria at Rockbank near Melbourne and a transmitter site at Ballan near Ballarat which eventually become known as Fiskville. A shortwave beam radiotelegraph service between Australia and Britain, undercutting the cable companies, was inaugurated on 8 April 1927 and terminated on 31 May 1969. In 1928, it established a similar service between Australia and Canada. In April 1930 the Empire radiotelephone service commenced.
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