I recently saw a request from a fellow amateur operator in South Australia looking for somebody to take a box full of South Australian Wireless Institute Journals he had archived from between 1959 and 1977.

I decided that I would offer to scan them so that they were not lost. I had developed experience in scanning large numbers of journals previously by scanning early copies of the Lo-Key journal from the VK QRP club, so I was confident that I could do it.

When the journals ultimately arrived, I discovered that they were a treasure trove of information printed (perhaps by Gestetner machine) on foolscap sized paper. Many were dog eared, and with varying states of paper decay from exposure to moisture, especially on the top left corner of the issues. The delicate nature of the paper made scanning a challenge.

I ended up developing a workflow that involved scanning pages one at a time to minimise handling of the paper and ultimately straightening, ordering and compiling issues. I have OCR’d the output to improve searchability.

The Journey has been fascinating, watching a number of significant changes occur to our hobby;

• Transitioning from valve based projects, through to transistors.
• The use of field effect transistors (FETs) by the community.
• Building of the headquarters for the WIA VK5 division.
• Australia’s changeover to decimal currency.
• The introduction of the uA741 opamp.
• Launching early amateur radio satellites.
• and many many more.

It is fascinating to see the support for groups such as W.I.C.E.N, as well as the normal calls for people to participate, both in stepping up to support the journal, or to join the WIA. It seems as though the calls we all hear today are simply echoes throughout history.

As a result of reading this material, I have learnt about the importance of a peak body such as the WIA. Somebody who represents the community to the P.M.G (Oh sorry – The ACMA). So many articles are about the WIA working with the PMG on Novice licencing, as well as ‘Z’ call privileges – (Of which I am proudly a member). Thank you to these people for what I enjoy today.

I have decided to allow access to the archives through this dropbox link;

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d4pgh9irhra7k3g/AADgmAwx7ctY4340cY8Ipbcra?dl=0

You may note that there are issues missing. I simply do not have these – If you have any of the missing issues you are very welcome to contact me at doug@vk1zdj.net and I will merrily scan them for you.

I have contacted the WIA, so maybe they will want the material for their archives.

But – and this is the important bit – Now the material is on the Internet, it will be assured of living on, long past my own expiry date.

Thank you David for letting me participate in doing this work.