This was interesting.

LINK...

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Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

Yes, very. Even to me on the opposite side of the world! :)  I don't remember ever hearing about AWA at all, although it's quite possible that I've seen pictures of AWA Radiola sets. I certainly didn't know about the chip fab stuff. A sad end for the company, but these things happen a lot in reality.

I just happened to have watched this a couple of days ago. Very nostalgic.
I remember working on the air conditioning at the Homebush fabrication plant. I was told to hang back one night while two guys in what looked like NBC suits were doing an annual cylinder change for a gas that was used for 'doping' the silicon. Highly toxic apparently. Seeing the way these two were dressed they didn't have to ask me twice.
While maintaining some fan coil units I came across some where the aluminium fins on the coils had disintegrated to a white power leaving the bare copper tubes behind.
As they had a chemical lab on site I asked the tech to confirm that the powder was in fact aluminium oxide. As it turned out it was and was due to the gas mixing with water, accumulating on the coils, becoming highly corrosive.
Absolutely fascinating place to work with the staff only too willing to answer my constant questions.

Very interesed in AWA history.
In my younger days I used a lot of AWA equipment while working in the Pacific Islands.
They made a range of MF and HF transmitters which we used for point to point services and also VHF telephone link equipment, both single and multi channel equipment.

The other items used a lot were test instruments which covered a range of applications from VTVMs, Audio Oscillators, Modulation Monitors and many more.  All were good and didn't give problems in the tropics.  

There were a range of HF radio transceivers including the 3BZ (used a lot during the war) and others for marine and land use.

Later AWA NZ took over the manufacture of VHF telephone link equipment and many units were used in the Pacific Island countries.  I did spend some time at AWA NZ discussing our island needs.

They also had a branch in Fiji (AWA Fiji) for some years. AWA Fiji were agents for AMSTRAD PCs amongst other things. They still exist as COMTECH Fiji now in Suva.

Unfortunately a lot of smaller companies that supplied good equipment from Australia and NZ have disappeared now.  Crammond of Brisbane made a range of HF transceivers which were widely used in the Islands, but are no more.

I would be happy to talk more off this forum if anyone was interesed.

Great memories

cs.

Nice to see where AWA radios came from. As a kid in the mid 1960's living on the
 farm we lucky enough had a down-under animal rescue ranch not far from home.
 Mr Nelson took in kangaroos,koalas and even a few ostriches. I would help bottle
 feed three small koalas. He had a AWA radio blasting all the time. One day I went
 to help and the radio was off. He said it broke when it was knocked off the box.
 He said when he plugged it back it there was smoke. He knew I had been doing repairs
 for many things and asked if I'd have a look.

 The board was Bakelite-phenolic and cracked. Over time I was able to mend the crack
 run wires where copper traces was burnt. Replaced a few blackened wire wound
 resistors and blown wax coated cap. Got it working and made him very happy.

 I could not find circuit so had to draw it out and work the values of the resistors.
 The cap was readable.

 Thanks for bringing this memory back to me.
 Quazee137

i'm impressed that Australia had a semiconductor fab! such a shame they lost it.

after the apocalypse, those who are left behind will have access to just existing supplies of spare parts (that will be consumed in a decade or so) and billions of disused cars that they can cut up to make farming tools out of. transport will be by horse and cart, and human society will settle back to a life of agriculture.

a working semiconductor fab would be a major asset; this would mean society could bypass the thermionic valve era and go straight to the transistor (or even basic integrated circuit) age. of course, humans will still need to make CRTs and incandescent light bulbs - LCD panels and usable LEDs will be far out in the future of the recovery process.


cheers,
rob   :-)
Edited 2025-10-26 21:11 by robert.rozee

Labour (zombies) will be cheap and plentiful though. :)

  robert.rozee said  

after the apocalypse

There will be no biology ..... We will be patterns in
the remaining circuitry ....

My very first job after leaving school was as an apprentice electrician at AWA Ashfield in Sydney. It was a huge factory covering about 10 acres, where they made radios and TVs as well as other things. All gone now, shops and home units. It's a pity we don't manufacture in Australia anymore, we seem to just rely on what we can dig out of the ground. I often wonder what will happen when the rest of the world doesn't want what we dig up anymore.

That was an excellent story. I had no idea of such a rich history they had.