1.
Government of Australia
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The Government of the Commonwealth of Australia is the government of the Commonwealth of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 as a result of an agreement among six self-governing British colonies, the terms of this contract are embodied in the Australian Constitution, which was drawn up at a Constitutional Convention and ratified by the people of the colonies at referendums. Separation of powers is implied by the structure of the Constitution, the Australian system of government combines elements of the Westminster and Washington systems with unique Australian characteristics, and has been characterised as a Washminster mutation. Section 51 of the Constitution provides for the Commonwealth Governments legislative powers and allocates certain powers, all remaining responsibilities are retained by the six States. Further, each State has its own constitution, so that Australia has seven sovereign Parliaments, the High Court of Australia arbitrates on any disputes which arise between the Commonwealth and the States, or among the States, concerning their respective functions. The Commonwealth Parliament can propose changes to the Constitution, the Commonwealth Constitution also provides that the States can agree to refer any of their powers to the Commonwealth. This may be achieved by way of an amendment to the Constitution via referendum, more commonly powers may be transferred by passing other acts of legislation which authorise the transfer and such acts require the legislative agreement of all the state governments involved. This transfer legislation may have a clause, a legislative provision that nullifies the transfer of power after a specified period. In addition, Australia has several territories, two of which are self-governing, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, Australian citizens in these territories are represented by members of both houses of the Commonwealth Parliament. The territory of Norfolk Island was self-governing from 1979 until 2016, the other territories that are regularly inhabited—Jervis Bay, Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands—have never been self-governing. The federal nature of the Commonwealth and the structure of the Parliament of Australia were the subject of protracted negotiations among the colonies during the drafting of the Constitution, the House of Representatives is elected on a basis that reflects the differing populations of the States. Thus New South Wales has 48 members while Tasmania has only five, but the Senate is elected on a basis of equality among the States, all States elect 12 Senators, regardless of population. This was intended to allow the Senators of the smaller States to form a majority, the ACT and the NT each elect two Senators. The third level of government after Commonwealth and State/Territory is Local government, in the form of shires, towns, the Councils of these areas are composed of elected representatives, usually serving part-time. Their powers are devolved to them by the State or Territory in which they are located, with this act, Australian law was made unequivocally sovereign, and the High Court of Australia was confirmed as the highest court of appeal. The theoretical possibility of the British Parliament enacting laws to override the Australian Constitution was also removed, the Legislature makes the laws, and supervises the activities of the other two arms with a view to changing the laws when appropriate. The Australian Parliament is bicameral, consisting of the Queen of Australia, a 76-member Senate, twelve Senators from each state are elected for six-year terms, using proportional representation and the single transferable vote, with half elected every three years. In addition to the state Senators, two senators are elected by voters from the Northern Territory, while another two senators are elected by the voters of the Australian Capital Territory
2.
Daniel McVey
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Sir Daniel McVey CMG was a senior Australian public servant. He was Director-General of the Postmaster-Generals Department from 1940 until December 1946, Daniel McVey was born in Carronshore, Stirlingshire, Scotland, on 24 November 1892, to Daniel and Jeanie McVey. He and his younger brothers Robert, Harry, George, Bill and sister Nessie moved to Australia in 1910 after their mother Jeanie died in childbirth, McVey joined the Commonwealth Public Service in the Postmaster-Generals Department as a clerk in 1914. He left the Department to serve with the First Australian Imperial Force between 1915 and 1919 in the 45th Battery, attaining the position Lieutenant and he was appointed Director-General of Posts and Telegraphs, heading the Postmaster-Generals Department, in January 1940. From February 1944, McVey had also held the post of Director-General of Civil Aviation, head of the Department of Civil Aviation, McVey retired from the public service in June 1946. Pty Ltd from 1949 until 1962, McVey died on 24 December 1972 in East Melbourne and was cremated. In 1946, McVey was awarded the University of Melbourne Kernot Memorial Medal, McVey was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1950
3.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
4.
Federation of Australia
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Fiji and New Zealand were originally part of this process, but they decided not to join the federation. When the Constitution of Australia came into force, on 1 January 1901, the efforts to bring about federation in the mid-19th century were dogged by the lack of popular support for the movement. A number of conventions were held during the 1890s to develop a constitution for the Commonwealth, Sir Henry Parkes, Premier of New South Wales, was instrumental in this process. The election returned Barton as prime minister, though without a majority and this period has lent its name to an architectural style prevalent in Australia at that time, known as Federation architecture, or Federation style. A serious movement for Federation of the colonies arose in the late 1880s, a time there was increasing nationalism amongst Australians. The idea of being Australian began to be celebrated in songs and this was fostered by improvements in transport and communications, such as the establishment of a telegraph system between the colonies in 1872. The Australian colonies were influenced by other federations which had emerged around the world, notably in Argentina, Canada, Switzerland. Sir Henry Parkes, then Colonial Secretary of New South Wales, the Federation had the potential to ensure that throughout the continent, trade, and interstate commerce would be unaffected by protectionism and measurement and transport would be standardised. The final push for the Federal Council came at a conference in 1883, called to debate the strategies needed to counter the activities of the German and French in New Guinea, Sir Samuel Griffith, the Premier of Queensland, drafted a bill to constitute the Federal Council. The conference successfully petitioned the Imperial Parliament to enact the bill as the Federal Council of Australasia Act 1885, as a result, a Federal Council of Australasia was formed, to represent the affairs of the colonies in their relations with the South Pacific islands. New South Wales and New Zealand did not join, the self-governing colonies of Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria, as well as the Crown Colonies of Western Australia and Fiji, became involved. South Australia was briefly a member between 1888 and 1890, furthermore, the absence of the powerful colony of New South Wales weakened its representative value. Nevertheless, it was the first major form of inter-colonial co-operation and it provided an opportunity for Federalists from around the country to meet and exchange ideas. The means by which the Council was established endorsed the continuing role that the Imperial Parliament would have in the development of Australias constitutional structure, the individual colonies, Victoria excepted, were somewhat wary of Federation. Queensland, for its part, worried that the advent of national legislation would restrict the importing of kanaka labourers and these were not the only concerns of those resistant to federation. Smaller colonies also worried about the abolition of tariffs, which would deprive them of a proportion of their revenue. New South Wales, traditionally free-trade in its outlook, wanted to be satisfied that the federations tariff policy would not be protectionist, Victorian Premier James Service described fiscal union as the lion in the way of federation. A further fundamental issue was how to distribute the excess customs duties from the government to the states
5.
Telstra
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Telstra has a long history in Australia, originating together with Australia Post as a government department, the Postmaster-Generals Department. Telstra is now fully privatised and has been undergoing a change program to become more customer focused under its recent CEO, New CEO Andy Penn was expected to increase the focus on growth in international markets although this plan is now in doubt. The federal governments National Broadband Network is causing changes to the industry and will see the company progressively sell its copper, Telstra head office is the Telstra Corporate Centre located at 242 Exhibition St, Melbourne, Australia. Australian telecommunications services were controlled by the Postmaster-Generals Department, formed in 1901 as a result of Australian Federation. Prior to 1901, telecommunications were administered by each colony, on 1 July 1975, separate commissions were established by statute to replace the PMG. Responsibility for postal services was transferred to the Australian Postal Commission, the Australian Telecommunications Commission, trading as Telecom Australia, ran domestic telecommunication services. In 1989, the ATC was reconstituted as the Australian Telecommunications Corporation, the AOTC was renamed to Telstra Corporation Limited in 1993. The name Telstra is derived from the word Telecom Australia, the corporation then traded under the Telstra brand internationally and Telecom Australia domestically until uniform branding of Telstra was introduced throughout the entire organisation in 1995. Telstra has faced competition since the early 1990s from Optus and a number of smaller providers, Telstra also has pay TV and data cable network Foxtel. Other companies offering fixed-line services must therefore deal with Telstra, except Optus, TransACT, the Overseas Telecommunications Commission was established by an Act of Parliament in August 1946. The new organisation underwent a corporate identity review and was subsequently renamed Telstra Corporation Limited for international business in 1993, Telstra was privatised in three different stages, informally known as T1, T2 and T3 in 1997,1999 and 2006 respectively. In T1, the government sold one third of its shares in Telstra for A$14 billion, in 1999, a further 16% of Telstra shares were sold to the public, leaving the Australian government with 51% ownership. In 2006, T3 was announced by the government and was the largest of the three releases, reducing the governments ownership of Telstra to 17%. The 17% remainder of Telstra was placed in Australias Future Fund, in 2009, the Future Fund sold off another $2.4 billion worth of shares reducing the governments stake in Telstra to 10. 9%. In August 2011, the Future Fund sold its remaining above market weight Telstra shares, with over one million shareholders, Telstra is currently the most widely held ASX listed company. As a result, Telstra was removed from the National Broadband Network RFP process on 15 December 2008. In response, Telstra has announced that it will raise speeds on its existing Next G network, following Telstras exclusion from the National Broadband Network bidding process Telstras share price suffered the biggest one day percentage fall in its history. As part of the agreement, Telstra would not be able to market their mobile network as an alternative to the NBN for a number of years, Telstra remains the owner of its networks
6.
Australia Post
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Australia Post provides postal services in Australia and its overseas territories. Australia Post is the name, Australian Postal Corporation is the Australian-Government-owned entity responsible for the services. The head office of Australia Post is located at 111 Bourke Street and this location also serves as a post office. Before colonial control of mail started in 1809, mail was passed on by ad hoc arrangements made between transporters, storekeepers and settlers. These arrangements were flexible and depended on cooperation of the country people and it was common for early settlers to ride many miles out of their way to deliver neighbours mail that had been collected from informal distribution points. The first organisation of a service in Australia commenced in 1809 with the appointment in Sydney of the first Postmaster of New South Wales. He was an ex-convict, Isaac Nichols, who took the post operating from his home in George Street, Sydney. His main job was to charge of letters and parcels arriving by ship. Nichols would pick up the mail and post a list of recipients outside his house and he would advertise in the Sydney Gazette the names of all those who received mail. Recipients paid a price of one shilling per letter to collect mail from Nichols home. VIP addressees were accorded personal delivery by Nichols, the Postal Act of 1825 allowed the governor to fix postage rates and appoint postmasters outside Sydney, enabling the first organised postal service. Letter deliveries began in 1828 and posting boxes first appeared in 1831, stamps were not required in those days, as the addressee paid for the letter, not the sender. Postal services grew throughout the Australian colonies as they were established, a regular overland service between Sydney and Melbourne, Port Phillip District began in 1838. Also in 1838, the first prepaid stamped letter sheets were introduced in Sydney, by 1849, uniform postal rates were established by agreement between the colonies. Prepaid adhesive stamps were introduced in the 1850s, Victoria was the first to make prepayment by stamps compulsory in 1852. Monthly steamship sea mail to the United Kingdom was established in 1856, the separate colonies joined the Universal Postal Union in 1891. Following federation in 1901, the colonial mail systems were merged into the Postmaster-Generals Department and this body was responsible for telegraph and domestic telephone operations as well as postal mail. An airmail service was introduced in 1914, the worlds first large-scale mechanical mail sorting system was introduced in Australia, and operational in the Sydney GPO in 1967
7.
Manhole
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Manhole closings are protected by a manhole cover, a flat plug designed to prevent accidental or unauthorized access to the manhole. Those plugs are made of metal, but may be constructed from precast concrete. Manholes are usually outfitted with metal, polypropylene, or fiberglass steps installed in the side of the wall to allow easy descent into the utility space. The access openings are usually circular in shape to prevent accidental fall of the cover into the hole, manholes are generally found in urban areas, in streets and occasionally under sidewalks. In rural and undeveloped areas, services such as telephone and electricity are usually carried on utility poles or even pylons rather than underground, in 2004, Jodie S. Lane was electrocuted after stepping on a metal manhole cover, while walking her dog in New York City. Glass-reinforced plastic Manhole cover Stray voltage Packaged Metering Manhole Isles, Paul, dover Life Magazine Ascher, Kate, researched by Wendy Marech. The works, anatomy of a city
8.
Perth
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Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth-most populous city in Australia, with a population of 2.06 million living in Greater Perth. The first areas settled were on the Swan River, with the central business district. Perth was founded by Captain James Stirling in 1829 as the centre of the Swan River Colony. It gained city status in 1856, and was promoted to the status of a Lord Mayorality in 1929. The city is named after Perth, Scotland, due to the influence of Sir George Murray, Member of Parliament for Perthshire and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The citys population increased substantially as a result of the Western Australian gold rushes in the late 19th century, largely as a result of emigration from the eastern colonies of Australia. During Australias involvement in World War II, Fremantle served as a base for operating in the Pacific Theatre. An influx of immigrants after the war, predominantly from Britain, Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia, Aboriginal people have inhabited the Perth area for 38,000 years, as evidenced by archaeological remains at Upper Swan. The Noongar people occupied the southwest corner of Western Australia and lived as hunter-gatherers, the wetlands on the Swan Coastal Plain were particularly important to them, both spiritually and as a source of food. The Noongar people know the area where Perth now stands as Boorloo, Boorloo formed part of Mooro, the tribal lands of Yellagongas group, one of several based around the Swan River and known collectively as the Whadjuk. The Whadjuk were part of a group of fourteen tribes that formed the south-west socio-linguistic block known as the Noongar. The judgment was overturned on appeal, the first documented sighting of the region was made by the Dutch Captain Willem de Vlamingh and his crew on 10 January 1697. The British colony would be officially designated Western Australia in 1832, Captain James Stirling, aboard Parmelia, said that Perth was as beautiful as anything of this kind I had ever witnessed. On 12 August that year, Helen Dance, wife of the captain of the ship, Sulphur. The only contemporary information on the source of the name comes from Fremantles diary entry for 12 August, Murray was born in Perth, Scotland, and was in 1829 Secretary of State for the Colonies and Member for Perthshire in the British House of Commons. The town was named after the Scottish Perth, in Murrays honour, the racial relations between the Noongar people and the Europeans were strained due to these happenings. Because of the amount of building in and around Boorloo
9.
History of telegraphy in Australia
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From 1858 onwards, the major capitals were progressively linked, culminating in the addition of Perth in 1877. Australia was linked to the rest of the world for the first time in 1872, the network continued to expand in size and sophistication until 1959 and in heavy usage until 1945, after which time telephone usage began to erode public patronage of telegraphy services. The final publicly provided telegraphy service was closed in 1993, a telegraph is a device for transmitting and receiving messages over long distances, i. e. for telegraphy. An electrical telegraph uses electric current and magnetism to convert the manual typing of codes that represent words and these impulses are transmitted over a metallic circuit to a distant location. At the distant location the impulses are converted into fields that operate a mechanical device to make a sound or to move a visual indicator. The operator at the receiving end converts these sounds or signals into a written message, the code system used throughout Australia was the Morse code. Australias first telegraph line, sponsored by the Victorian Government, was erected between Melbourne and Williamstown in 1853 and 1854 by Samuel McGowan, a recently immigrated Canadian telegrapher. The line covered a distance of 17 kilometres and went into operation in March 1854,4000 telegrams were despatched in the first year. When the line was extended to Geelong in December 1854, the first message transmitted to Melbourne brought news of the Eureka Stockade, connections to Queenscliff and Port Melbourne provided notice of ships entering the harbour and arriving at port. Connections to the centres of Ballarat and Bendigo were both completed in December 1856. By 1857 Victoria had been extensively networked by telegraph lines, including a line reaching to Portland, by 1867 there were 1,676 miles of line within Victoria, handling 122,138 messages. Late 1854 the South Australian Government sought help from the Colonial Office in London to find a suitable superintendent of telegraphs and their choice was Charles Todd, who arrived in Adelaide in November 1855. A private entrepreneur, James McGeorge, stole the day by opening a telegraph from Adelaide to the Port on the very day of Todd’s arrival in Adelaide. In 1856 the Government bought the line for £80 and promptly dismantled it. Todd completed the Government line from Adelaide to Semaphore in two months and he used a British technique, using an underground cable that proved disastrous. The cable soon failed due to the insulation of the wires available in that period. Critical to the progress of South Australia was a connection to Melbourne, the Adelaide to Melbourne connection was begun in April 1857 and completed in July 1858. This included a 300 km South Australian section built at that colony’s expense, so heavily used was the first telegraph line to Melbourne that Todd reported to the government that a second line was needed
10.
Minister for Communications (Australia)
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The current Minister for Communications is Senator the Hon. Mitch Fifield, since 21 September 2015. The current Minister for Regional Communications is Senator the Hon. Fiona Nash, in the Government of Australia, the ministers administer the portfolio through the Department of Communications and the Arts and a range of other government agencies. From 1901 until December 1975 it was the Postmaster-General, who administered the portfolio through the Postmaster-Generals Department,2 On 24 July 1987, the third Hawke ministry implemented a two-level ministerial structure, with distinctions drawn between senior and junior ministers. This arrangement has continued by subsequent ministries. Junior ministers are shown in the table below, on 24 July 1987, the third Hawke Ministry implemented a two-level ministerial structure, with distinctions drawn between senior and junior ministers. This arrangement has continued by subsequent ministries, however, junior ministers have been appointed in the telecommunications portfolio on only five occasions. Senior ministers are shown in the table above
11.
Australian Communications and Media Authority
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The Australian Communications and Media Authority is an Australian Government statutory authority within the Communications portfolio. The ACMA is tasked with ensuring media and communications works for all Australians and it does this through various legislation, regulations, standards and codes of practice. The ACMA is a regulator, created to oversee the convergence of the four worlds of telecommunications, broadcasting, radio communications. The ACMA was formed on 1 July 2005 by a merger of the Australian Broadcasting Authority and it is one of only a handful of converged communications regulators in the world. The ACMA is an independent agency with the Authority composed of the Chairman, Deputy Chair, the ACMA is managed by an executive team comprising the Chairman, the Deputy Chair, four general managers and nine executive managers. The corporate structure comprises four divisions - Communications Infrastructure, Content, Consumer and Citizen, Corporate and Research, the ACMA has responsibilities under four principal Acts - the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, the Telecommunications Act 1997, the Telecommunications Act 1999 and the Radiocommunications Act 1992. There are another 22 Acts to which the agency responds in such areas as spam, the ACMA collects revenue on behalf of the Australian Government through broadcasting, radiocommunications and telecommunications taxes, charges and licence fees. It also collects revenue from price-based allocation of spectrum, the ACMAs main offices are located in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney. Communications convergence is the merging of the previously distinct services by which information is communicated - telephone, television radio, Not only does the ACMA address a wide and disparate range of responsibilities, it does so against a backdrop of rapid and disruptive change. Moreover, there are new platforms, applications, business models, value chains and forms of social interaction available with more to come in what is a dynamic, other challenges for regulators include cross-jurisdictional issues and the need for engagement and collaboration with stakeholders locally, regionally and internationally. The four cornerstone parts to the framework, each divided into two sub-streams, are outlined below along with the functions of the ACMA under each task. These changes were not enacted by the Labour Government and the new Coalition Government has not made major decisions on the future of the ACMA, the ACMA administers a complaints mechanism for Australian residents and law enforcement agencies to report prohibited online content, including child sexual abuse material. The ACMA publishes comprehensive statistics and information about the ACMA Hotline on its website, the majority of investigations the ACMA conducts concern online child sexual abuse material. Complaints to the ACMA Hotline are usually made via a webform on the ACMAs website, popularly held misconceptions about the ACMAs regulatory role include that investigates and takes action on whole websites and that the ACMA causes blocking of content at an ISP level. As of November 2013, the Register has nine million numbers listed, the Australian Government made the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 to give Australians the opportunity to opt-out of receiving most telemarketing calls and marketing faxes. It is against the law for telemarketers to make unsolicited calls or to send marketing faxes to a number on the register without consent. The best way a telemarketer or fax marketer can ensure they comply with the DNCR Act is to check their list against the register at least every 30 days, the Fax Marketing Industry Standard 2011 sets out rules about when and how marketing faxes can be sent. The ACMA oversees and enforces compliance with the DNCR Act and related industry standard, Members of the public can make complaints about telemarketing calls and marketing faxes to the ACMA
12.
Fraser Government
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The Fraser Government refers to the federal Executive Government of Australia led by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. It was made up of members of a Liberal Party of Australia-Country Party of Australia coalition in the Australian Parliament from November 1975 to March 1983. Billy Snedden led the Liberal-National Coalition in the 1974 Australian Federal Election which saw Whitlam Labor Government re-elected with a majority in the House of Representatives. Malcolm Fraser unsuccessfully challenged for the leadership of the Liberal Party in November 1974, then on 21 March 1975, defeated Snedden, Prime Minister Whitlam refused to call an election. The deadlock came to an end when Whitlam was dismissed by the Governor General, John Kerr on 11 November 1975 and Fraser was installed as caretaker Prime Minister, at elections held in December 1975, Malcolm Fraser and the Coalition were elected in a landslide victory. The election result placed the Liberal Party in a position to govern in its own right, however, Fraser maintained the Coalition, after winning the 1975 election, Fraser won two subsequent elections, with further substantial majorities in 1977 and 1980. Australia had entered recession and faced high inflation under the period of the Whitlam Government. Fraser persuaded his first Treasurer, Phillip Lynch, to resign in 1977, Howard also replaced Lynch as deputy leader of the party in 1982. Howard served as Frasers Treasurer from November 1977 and presented five federal budgets, during the 1970s Howard shifted from a protectionist to a free trade position – in the new economic rationalist mould. The Fraser Government sought to reduce expenditure and streamline the public service, by 1983, the Australian economy was in recession, amidst the effects of a severe drought. The Fraser Government maintained many of the reforms of the Whitlam era. It passed the Human Rights Commission Act 1981, which established the Human Rights Commission and this government also established the position of Commonwealth Ombudsman in 1977 and introduced Australias first freedom of information law. The Fraser government included the first Aboriginal federal parliamentarian, Neville Bonner, in 1976, Parliament passed the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976, which, while limited to the Northern Territory, affirmed inalienable freehold title to some traditional lands. While prior governments had dismantled the White Australia Policy, it was under the Fraser Government that immigration became multiracial. Some 200,000 Asian migrants came to Australia between 1975 and 1982 – of whom 56,000 were Vietnamese refugees, among them around 2000 boatpeople who arrived without documents via sea voyages. The Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs was created and extensive assistance given to resettlement and multiculturalism, Fraser travelled widely as Prime Minister. Andrew Peacock served as his Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Fraser Government was in office during a period of change for the Commonwealth of Nations. Fraser vocally opposed minority white rule in Apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 1977 in Scotland, Fraser urged for widespread condemnation of the apartheid system in South Africa and called for support for African countries
13.
Telephone exchange
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A telephone exchange is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network or in large enterprises. In historical perspective, telecommunication terms have been used with different semantics over time, the term telephone exchange is often used synonymously with central office, a Bell System term. Often, an office is defined as a building used to house the inside plant equipment of potentially several telephone exchanges. Such an area has also referred to as the exchange. Central office locations may also be identified in North America as wire centers, All central offices within a larger region, typically aggregated by state, were assigned a common numbering plan area code. For corporate or enterprise use, a telephone exchange is often referred to as a private branch exchange. Smaller installations might deploy a PBX or key telephone system in the office of a receptionist and this made it possible for subscribers to call each other at homes, businesses, or public spaces. These made telephony an available and comfortable communication tool for everyday use, one of the first to propose a telephone exchange was Hungarian Tivadar Puskás in 1877 while he was working for Thomas Edison. The first experimental telephone exchange was based on the ideas of Puskás, the worlds first commercial telephone exchange opened on November 12,1877 in Friedrichsberg close to Berlin. George W. Coy designed and built the first commercial US telephone exchange opened in New Haven. The switchboard was built from carriage bolts, handles from teapot lids and bustle wire, Charles Glidden is also credited with establishing an exchange in Lowell, MA. with 50 subscribers in 1878. In Europe other early telephone exchanges were based in London and Manchester, Belgium had its first International Bell exchange a year later. In 1887 Puskás introduced the multiplex switchboard, later exchanges consisted of one to several hundred plug boards staffed by switchboard operators. Each operator sat in front of a panel containing banks of ¼-inch tip-ring-sleeve jacks. In front of the jack panel lay a horizontal panel containing two rows of patch cords, each connected to a cord circuit. When a calling party lifted the receiver, the loop current lit a signal lamp near the jack. The operator responded by inserting the rear cord into the jack and switched her headset into the circuit to ask, Number. For a local call, the operator inserted the front cord of the pair into the partys local jack
14.
Switchboard operator
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Each pair of plugs was part of a cord circuit with a switch associated that let the operator participate in the call. Each jack had a light above it that lit when the receiver was lifted. Lines from the office were usually arranged along the bottom row. Switchboard operators are required to have very strong communication skills. Before the advent of automatic exchanges, an operators assistance was required for anything other than calling telephones across a party line. Callers spoke to an operator at a Central Office who then connected a cord to the circuit in order to complete the call. Being in complete control of the call, the operator was in a position to listen to private conversations, automatic, or Dial systems were developed in the 1920s to reduce labor costs as usage increased, and to ensure privacy to the customer. As phone systems became more sophisticated, less direct intervention by the operator was necessary to complete calls. As well as the people that were employed by the networks, operators were required at private branch exchanges to answer incoming telephone calls. Today, most large organizations have direct-dial extensions, smaller workplaces may have an automated system which allows callers to enter the extension of the called party, or a receptionist who answers calls and performs operator duties. Operators employed in healthcare settings have other duties, such as entry, greeting patients and visitors, taking messages, triaging. Experienced, well trained operators generally command a higher salary, in January 1878 George Willard Croy became the worlds first telephone operator when he started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch company. Emma was hired by Alexander Graham Bell, and reportedly, could remember every number in the directory of the New England Telephone Company. Emma Nutt became the first female telephone operator on 1 September 1878 when she started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch company, more women began to replace men within this sector of the workforce for several reasons. The companies observed that women were generally more courteous to callers, however, a contributing factor to women entering this workforce was because womens labour was cheap in comparison to mens. Specifically, women were paid from one half to one quarter of a mans salary, attendant console Operator assistance Private branch exchange Telephone operator Telephone switchboard Media related to Telephone operators at Wikimedia Commons
15.
Direct current
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Direct current is a flow of electrical charge carriers that always takes place in the same direction. The current need not always have the magnitude, but if it is to be defined as dc. This contrasts with alternating current which varies the direction of flow, sources of direct current include power supplies, electrochemical cells and batteries, and photovoltaic cells and panels. The intensity, or amplitude, of a direct current might fluctuate with time, in some such cases the dc has an ac component superimposed on it. An example of this is the output of a cell that receives a modulated light communications signal. A source of dc is sometimes called a dc generator, batteries and various other sources of dc produce a constant voltage. This is called pure dc and can be represented by a straight, the peak and effective values are the same. The peak to peak value is zero because the instantaneous amplitude never changes, in some instances the value of a dc voltage pulsates or oscillates rapidly with time, in a manner similar to the changes in an ac wave. The unfiltered output of a wave or a full wave rectifier. In 1820, Hans Christian Orsted discovered that electrical current creates a magnetic field and this discovery made scientists relate magnetism to the electric phenomena. In 1879, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. He improved a 50-year-old idea using lower current electricity, a vacuum inside the globe and a small carbonized filament. At that time, the idea of lightning was not new. Edison not only invented an incandescent electric light, but an electric lighting system contained all the necessary elements to make the incandescent light safe, economical. Prior to 1879, direct current electricity had been used in lighting for the outdoors and it was in the 1880s when the modern electric utility industry began. It was an evolution from street lighting systems and from gas and it was located in Lower Manhattan, on Pearl Street. This station provided light and electricity to customers in a one square mile range, the station was called Thomas Edisons Pearl Street Electricity Generating Station. This station introduced four elements of an electric utility system, Efficient distribution, competitive price, reliable central generation
16.
Battery (electricity)
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An electric battery is a device consisting of one or more electrochemical cells with external connections provided to power electrical devices such as flashlights, smartphones, and electric cars. When a battery is supplying power, its positive terminal is the cathode. The terminal marked negative is the source of electrons that when connected to a circuit will flow. It is the movement of ions within the battery which allows current to flow out of the battery to perform work. Historically the term specifically referred to a device composed of multiple cells. Primary batteries are used once and discarded, the materials are irreversibly changed during discharge. Common examples are the battery used for flashlights and a multitude of portable electronic devices. Secondary batteries can be discharged and recharged multiple times using mains power from a wall socket, examples include the lead-acid batteries used in vehicles and lithium-ion batteries used for portable electronics such as laptops and smartphones. According to a 2005 estimate, the battery industry generates US$48 billion in sales each year. Batteries have much lower energy than common fuels such as gasoline. This is somewhat offset by the efficiency of electric motors in producing mechanical work. The usage of battery to describe a group of electrical devices dates to Benjamin Franklin, alessandro Volta built and described the first electrochemical battery, the voltaic pile, in 1800. This was a stack of copper and zinc plates, separated by brine-soaked paper disks, Volta did not understand that the voltage was due to chemical reactions. Although early batteries were of value for experimental purposes, in practice their voltages fluctuated. It consisted of a pot filled with a copper sulfate solution, in which was immersed an unglazed earthenware container filled with sulfuric acid. These wet cells used liquid electrolytes, which were prone to leakage and spillage if not handled correctly, many used glass jars to hold their components, which made them fragile and potentially dangerous. These characteristics made wet cells unsuitable for portable appliances, near the end of the nineteenth century, the invention of dry cell batteries, which replaced the liquid electrolyte with a paste, made portable electrical devices practical. Batteries convert chemical energy directly to electrical energy, a battery consists of some number of voltaic cells
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Geelong
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Geelong is a port city located on Corio Bay and the Barwon River, in the state of Victoria, Australia,75 kilometres south-west of the state capital, Melbourne. It is the second largest Victorian city, with an urban population of 191,440 as at June 2016. Geelong runs from the plains of Lara in the north to the hills of Waurn Ponds to the south, with Corio Bay to the east. Geelong is the centre for the City of Greater Geelong municipality. Geelong was named in 1827, with the derived from the local Wathaurong Aboriginal name for the region, Jillong. The area was first surveyed in 1838, three weeks after Melbourne, the post office was open by June 1840. The first woolstore was erected in this period and it became the port for the industry of the Western District. During the gold rush, Geelong experienced a boom as the main port to the rich goldfields of the Ballarat district. The city then diversified into manufacturing, and during the 1860s, it one of the largest manufacturing centres in Australia with its wool mills, ropeworks. Population increases over the last decade were due to growth in service industries, redevelopment of the inner city has occurred since the 1990s, as well as gentrification of inner suburbs, and currently has a population growth rate higher than the national average. It is known for being home to the Geelong Football Club, today, Geelong stands as an emerging health, education and advanced manufacturing hub. The area of Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula was originally occupied by the Wathaurong Indigenous Australian tribe, the first nonindigenous person recorded as visiting the region was Lt. John Murray, who commanded the brig HMS Lady Nelson. After anchoring outside Port Phillip Heads, on 1 February 1802, led by John Bowen, they explored the immediate area, returning to the Lady Nelson on 4 February. On reporting favourable findings, the Lady Nelson entered Port Phillip on 14 February, during this time, Murray explored the Geelong area and, whilst on the far side of the bay, claimed the entire area for Britain. He named the bay Port King, after Philip Gidley King, Governor King later renamed the bay Port Phillip after the first governor of New South Wales, Arthur Phillip. Arriving not long after Murray was Matthew Flinders, who entered Port Phillip on 27 April 1802, in October of the same year, the HMS Calcutta led by Lieutenant Colonel David Collins arrived in the bay to establish the Sullivan Bay penal colony. Collins was dissatisfied with the chosen, and sent a small party led by First Lieutenant J. H. Tuckey to investigate alternate sites. The party spent 22 October to 27 October on the shore of Corio Bay
18.
Strowger switch
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The Strowger switch was the first commercially successful electromechanical stepping switch telephone exchange system. It was invented by Almon Brown Strowger, and first patented in 1891, because of its operational characteristics it is also known as a step-by-step switch. Strowger, an undertaker, was motivated to invent an automatic telephone exchange after having difficulties with the telephone operators. He was said to be convinced that she, as one of the telephone exchange operators, was sending calls to the undertaker to her husband. He first conceived his invention in 1888, and patented the telephone exchange in 1891. It is reported that the model was made from a round collar box. The Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company was founded in 1891, the company installed and opened the first commercial exchange in his then-home town of La Porte, Indiana on November 3,1892, with about 75 subscribers and capacity for 99. Early advertising called the new invention the girl-less, cuss-less, out-of-order-less, wait-less telephone, the Strowger patents were exclusively licensed to the Automatic Electric Company. Strowger sold his patents in 1896 for US$1,800 and sold his share in Automatic Electric in 1898 for US$10,000 and his patents subsequently sold for US$2.5 million in 1916. Company engineers continued development of the Strowger designs and submitted several patents in the names of its employees, the Strowger system was widely used until the development of the more reliable crossbar switch, an electromechanical switch with a matrix of vertical and horizontal bars and simpler motions. Strowgers patent specifies dialing equipment at the location and the switching equipment at the central office. The customer device creates trains of on-off current pulses corresponding to the digits 1-9 and this equipment originally consisted of two telegraph keys engaged by knife switches, and evolved into the rotary dial telephone. The central office switching equipment had a two-motion stepping switch, a contact arm could be moved up and down to select one of ten rows of contacts, and then rotated to select one of ten contacts in that row, a total of 100 choices. The stepping motion was controlled by the current pulses coming from the originating customers telegraph keys, the Strowger switch had three banks of contacts, what appear to be continuous arcs of metal might be shields, individual contacts are hidden. Toward the upper end of each shaft are two copper-colored ratchets, the upper one has ten grooves, and raises the shaft. The lower one has long vertical teeth, the Strowger switch used two telegraph type keys on a telephone set for dialing. Each key required a wire to the exchange. The keys were tapped to step the switch in two stages, the first set of incoming pulses raises the armature of an electromagnet to move a shaft which selects the desired level of contacts, by engaging a pawl with the upper ratchet
19.
Crossbar switch
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In electronics, a crossbar switch is a collection of switches arranged in a matrix configuration. Originally, a crossbar switch consisted literally of crossing metal bars that provided the input and output paths, later implementations achieved the same switching topology in solid state semiconductor chips. The cross-point switch is one of the principal switch architectures, together with a switch, memory switch. A crossbar switch is an assembly of individual switches between a set of inputs and a set of outputs, the switches are arranged in a matrix. If the crossbar switch has M inputs and N outputs, then a crossbar has a matrix with M × N cross-points or places where the connections cross, at each crosspoint is a switch, when closed, it connects one of the inputs to one of the outputs. A given crossbar is a layer, non-blocking switch. Non-blocking means that other concurrent connections do not prevent connecting other inputs to other outputs, collections of crossbars can be used to implement multiple layer and blocking switches. A crossbar switching system is called a coordinate switching system. Crossbar switches are used in information processing applications such as telephony and circuit switching. The matrix layout of a switch is also used in some semiconductor memory devices. Here the bars are thin metal wires, and the switches are fusible links. The fuses are blown or opened using high voltage and read using low voltage, such devices are called programmable read-only memory. At the 2008 NSTI Nanotechnology Conference a paper was presented which discussed a nanoscale crossbar implementation of an adding circuit used as an alternative to logic gates for computation, matrix arrays are fundamental to modern flat-panel displays. Thin-film-transistor LCDs have a transistor at each crosspoint, so they could be considered to include a switch as part of their structure. In a typical installation, all the sources are located on an equipment rack. Where central control of the matrix is practical, a typical rack-mount matrix switch offers front-panel buttons to allow connection of inputs to outputs. An example of such a usage might be a sports bar, ordinarily, a sports bar would install a separate desk top box for each display for which independent control is desired. Such switches are used in home theater applications
20.
Victorian Telecommunications Museum
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The Victorian Telecommunications Museum is a small museum in the Hawthorn Telephone Exchange, Burwood Road, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia. It houses historical telecommunications equipment that had used by what originally was called the Postmaster-Generals Department. The Department split in 1975 into Telecom Australia and Australia Post, in 1993 Telecom Australia was renamed Telstra after the merger of Telecom Australia and OTC. A fraction of the thousands of items housed are on display for visitors, one is a working mini telephone exchange with four old phones that can call each other. The visitor can watch the exchange manually step up and click around as the numbers are dialled, the phones have all the original dial tones and rings that were standard for this equipment. The most significant exhibit is one of the original mechanical speaking clocks and this is one of the four Mark II machines produced in England for use in Australia, which were received in Australia in the early 1950s. The discs were originally using a exciter and a detector made with valve technology. These devices are no longer available and, because all the originals had failed and this development has enabled the speaking clock to be restored to full operation. The site is managed by volunteers and is open to the public on the 4th Wednesday of the month or by appointment only. A Mark II speaking clock is also on display at the Telstra Museum, Bankstown Sydney,12 Kitchener Parade, next to the Bankstown Telephone Exchange and this museum also is run by volunteers. The Brisbane Telstra Museum is at Albion Telephone Exchange, at the corner of Sandgate and Oriel Streets, volunteers also run this site, which is open to the public every Wednesday
21.
Telecommunications in Australia
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Governments have driven telecommunication development and have a key role in regulation. Each of the six Australian colonies had their own telephony communications network prior to Federation of Australia in 1901, the Australian networks were government assets operating under colonial legislation modelled on that of Britain. Australias first telephone service was launched in 1879, the private Melbourne Telephone Exchange Company opened Australias first telephone exchange in August 1880. Around 7,757 calls were handled in 1884, all the colonies ran their telegraph networks at a deficit through investment in infrastructure and subsidisation of regional access, generally with bipartisan support. With 16,000 staff the PMG accounted for 80% of the new federal bureaucracy, public phones were available in a handful of post offices. Subscriber telephones were initially restricted to businesses, government agencies, institutions. Eight million telegrams were sent that year over 43,000 miles of line, there were around 33,000 phones across Australia, with 7,502 telephone subscribers in inner Sydney and 4,800 in the Melbourne central business district. Overseas cable links to Australia remained in hands, reflecting the realities of imperial politics, demands on the new governments resources. A trunk line between Melbourne and Sydney was established in 1907, with extension to Adelaide in 1914, Brisbane in 1923, Perth in 1930, on 12 July 1906 the first Australian wireless overseas messages were sent between Point Lonsdale, Victoria and Devonport, Tasmania. Australia and New Zealand ratified the 1906 Berlin Radio-telegraph Convention in 1907, Australia developed its own radio broadcasting system, through its own engineers, manufacturers, retailers, newspapers, entertainment services, and news agencies. The Australian Labor Party was especially interested in radio because it allowed them to bypass the newspapers, both parties agreed on the need for a national system, and in 1932 set up the Australian Broadcasting Commission was set up as a government agency largely separate from political interference. The first commercial broadcasters, originally known as B class stations were on the air as early as 1925, many were sponsored by newspapers in Australia, by theatrical interests, by amateur radio enthusiasts and radio retailers, and by retailers generally. Almost all Australians were within reach of a station by 1930s, the broadcasting system was largely deregulated in 1992, except that there were limits on foreign ownership and on monopolistic control. By 2000,99 percent of Australians owned at least one television set, in 1934 Dr Val McDowall at amateur station 4CM Brisbane conducted experiments in electronic television. Many forms of entertainment, particularly drama and variety, proved more suited to television than radio and it now includes a broad range of public, commercial, community, subscription, narrowcast, and amateur stations across the country. Colour television in the PAL 625-line format went to a basis on 1975. Subscription television, on the Galaxy platform, began in 1995, Digital terrestrial television was introduced in 2001. Australia moved from PAL625 to DVB-T on 10 December 2013, subscription television, whether Foxtel or Netflix type services, has become more important and is one factor driving demand for the National Broadband Network
22.
Malcolm Fraser
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John Malcolm Fraser AC, CH, GCL was an Australian politician who was the 22nd Prime Minister of Australia and the Leader of the Liberal Party from 1975 to 1983. Elected to the Australian Parliament seat of Wannon in 1955 at the age of 25, Fraser was appointed to the Cabinet in 1966. After rising to become Minister for Defence in 1969, he was regarded as a contender for the leadership of the Liberal Party following their defeat in 1972, Fraser challenged Snedden in 1975 and was elected Leader of the Liberal Party, becoming the Leader of the Opposition. He went on to win the largest parliamentary majority as a proportion of seats in Australian political history at the subsequent election, after two further election victories in 1977 and 1980, he was defeated by the Bob Hawke-led Australian Labor Party in 1983 and left parliament shortly after. Fraser was the last Liberal Party Prime Minister to practise Keynesian economics, in retirement, Fraser became involved in international relief and humanitarian aid issues and, domestically, as a forthright liberal voice for human rights. Shortly after Tony Abbott won the 2009 Liberal Party leadership spill, Fraser ended his Liberal Party membership, stating the party was no longer a liberal party, on 20 March 2015, Fraser died at the age of 84 after a brief illness. John Malcolm Fraser was born on 21 May 1930 in Toorak, Victoria, to a family with a history of involvement in politics, Frasers mother, Una Woolf, was of Jewish descent on her own fathers side, which Fraser did not discover until he was an adult. While at Oxford, Fraser was a classmate and friend of future Canadian Prime Minister John Turner, upon returning to Australia from Oxford, Fraser contested the seat of Wannon in 1954 for the Liberal Party, losing to Labor incumbent Don McLeod by just 17 votes. However, a redistribution made Wannon a notionally Liberal seat, Fraser subsequently won the seat with a majority of more than 5,000 on a swing of 8.5 per cent. Aged just 25, he was the youngest Member of Parliament, after more than a decade on the backbench, Fraser was appointed to the Cabinet by the prime minister, Harold Holt, in 1966. As Minister for the Army he presided over the controversial Vietnam War conscription program, in March 1971, Fraser abruptly resigned from the Cabinet in protest at what he called Gortons interference in ministerial responsibilities. This precipitated a series of events eventually led to the downfall of Gorton. Gorton never forgave Fraser for the role he played in his downfall, McMahon immediately reappointed Fraser to the Cabinet, returning him to his old position of Minister for Education and Science. When the Liberals were defeated at the 1972 election by the Labor Party under Gough Whitlam, McMahon resigned, after Snedden was defeated in 1974, Fraser unsuccessfully challenged him for the leadership of the Liberal Party in November. Despite surviving the challenge, Sneddens position in opinion polls continued to decline, Fraser again challenged Snedden on 21 March 1975, this time succeeding and becoming Leader of the Liberal Party and Leader of the Opposition. Fraser was immediately sworn in as prime minister on the condition that he end the political deadlock. On 19 November 1975, shortly after the election had been called, a bomb was sent to Fraser. Similar devices were sent to the governor-general and the Premier of Queensland, at the 1975 election, Fraser led the Liberal-Country Party Coalition to a landslide victory
23.
Telstra Tower
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Telstra Tower is a telecommunications tower and lookout that is situated above the summit of Black Mountain in Australias capital city of Canberra. The tower was to replace the microwave relay station on Red Hill, during the approval process of the tower, protests arose on aesthetic and ecological grounds. Some people felt that the tower would dominate other aesthetic Canberra structures due to its location above Black Mountain and within a nature reserve, a case was brought before the High Court of Australia arguing that the Federal Government did not have the constitutional power to construct the tower. The decision was made in favour of the government and construction was able to commence, Black Mountain Tower was opened on 15 May 1980 by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. It was officially named Telecom Tower, and when the company was rebranded in 1993. Prior to the construction of the tower, CTC-TV had its studios located at the top of Black Mountain, also located on the top were two guy-wired masts, one for CTC-TV and the other one for the local ABC TV station. These were demolished in 1980 after the tower had opened, the Alto Tower Restaurant, a revolving restaurant in the tower, closed on 14 February 2013. Telstra Tower provides important communication facilities for Canberra along with indoor and outdoor observation decks, a café and a gift shop. The viewing platforms provide 360 degree views of Canberra and the surrounding city, visitors to Telstra Tower can see the city unfold from the enclosed viewing gallery or from the two open viewing platforms. Besides the telecommunications facilities the tower also an souvenir shop. Former facilities included Canberras only revolving restaurant which rotated 360 degrees in 81 minutes which allowing diners to experience a changing view throughout their meal, there is a theatre which provides a video, produced shortly after the tower opened, on the towers design and construction. Telstra Tower has become one of the most symbolic landmarks in Canberra, Telstra Tower is one of the most visually imposing structures on the Canberra skyline, visible from many parts of Canberra and Queanbeyan. Media related to Telstra Tower at Wikimedia Commons Telstra Tower website Telstra Tower Black Mountain Panorama Gallery Telstra Tower at Structurae
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Overseas Telecommunications Commission
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The Overseas Telecommunications Commission was established by Australia in August 1946. In effect, all overseas telecommunications was nationalized, Australia was adopting a Commonwealth-wide policy that had been adopted the Commonwealth conference in 1945. The main goal was to end the artificial routing of traffic to cable or wireless depending on private financial profits, the new organisation underwent a corporate identity review and was subsequently renamed Telstra Corporation Limited. When first established in 1946, OTC inherited facilities which had been depleted during World War II, from this tenuous beginning, the organisation was to grow over the years to gain world standing on the international telecommunications stage. Throughout rapid developments in undersea cable networks, global satellite systems and burgeoning digital technologies and it also maintained and developed its links with maritime services, one of the initial arms of Australia’s international telecommunications network. From this tenuous beginning, the organisation was to grow over the years to gain world standing on the international telecommunications stage, throughout rapid developments in undersea cable networks, global satellite systems and burgeoning digital technologies, OTC maintained a keen watch over its services to ensure continued quality. It also maintained and developed its links with maritime services, one of the arms of Australias international telecommunications network. 19467 August, OTC established by Act of Parliament The Overseas Telecommunications Act,1946,23 August, First Commission appointed – James Malone appointed Chief Commissioner. 19 October, JES Stevens appointed first General Manager of OTC,19471 February, OTC assumed full control of radio services from AWA Ltd.28 May, Trials of 5-unit teletype equipment conducted on the Sydney-San Francisco RCA Multiplex. 1 July, Interim Management Agreement signed by OTC and Cable, OTC assumed managerial control of the Australian international cable network but the assets remained with Cable and Wireless Ltd.7 July, Bassendean receiving station, Western Australia, closed. 1 September, New shore end laid for Pacific Cable at Fanning Island,20 November, Direct Melbourne-Wellington, New Zealand, picturegram service opened. 194825 January, First Wagga Weekend, April, OTCs first Annual Report tabled in Parliament. 11 May, First International Telecommunication Union meeting since WWII began in Brussels,12 July, Work commenced on a new station building for Darwin Radio. 15 January, Adelaide cable station closed,11 April, Arrangements completed for establishing a radiotelephone service between Australia and HMA ships at sea. 1 May, Assets of Cable & Wireless Ltd purchased by the Commission,2 May, Aerogram service commenced between Australian coast radio stations and Qantas and BOAC flights on the Sydney-UK route. 19 May, International Telegraph and Telephone Conference began in Paris to revise international telegraph agreements,31 May, Commonwealth Telecommunications Board formed. 14 December, OTCs first staff Christmas party held on Sydney Harbour,19501 February, Flat rates introduced for traffic to major foreign zones from Australia. Commercial rates to most foreign destinations also amended, all rates increased by 3d per word
25.
Telstra Research Laboratories
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Telstra Research Laboratories was a leading telecommunications research and development centre in Australia up until its closure in January 2006. Telstra is Australias dominant telecommunications carrier, TRL was originally established as the Research Laboratories of the Postmaster-Generals Department in 1923. The Research Laboratories continued as PMG became Telecom Australia and later became Telstra, http, //www. coxhill. com/trlhistory/ Unofficial TRL history and Chronicles of Trel
26.
Telecommunication
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Telecommunication is the transmission of signs, signals, messages, writings, images and sounds or intelligence of any nature by wire, radio, optical or other electromagnetic systems. Telecommunication occurs when the exchange of information between communication participants includes the use of technology and it is transmitted either electrically over physical media, such as cables, or via electromagnetic radiation. Such transmission paths are divided into communication channels which afford the advantages of multiplexing. The term is used in its plural form, telecommunications. Early means of communicating over a distance included visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, other examples of pre-modern long-distance communication included audio messages such as coded drumbeats, lung-blown horns, and loud whistles. Zworykin, John Logie Baird and Philo Farnsworth, the word telecommunication is a compound of the Greek prefix tele, meaning distant, far off, or afar, and the Latin communicare, meaning to share. Its modern use is adapted from the French, because its use was recorded in 1904 by the French engineer. Communication was first used as an English word in the late 14th century, in the Middle Ages, chains of beacons were commonly used on hilltops as a means of relaying a signal. Beacon chains suffered the drawback that they could pass a single bit of information. One notable instance of their use was during the Spanish Armada, in 1792, Claude Chappe, a French engineer, built the first fixed visual telegraphy system between Lille and Paris. However semaphore suffered from the need for skilled operators and expensive towers at intervals of ten to thirty kilometres, as a result of competition from the electrical telegraph, the last commercial line was abandoned in 1880. Homing pigeons have occasionally used throughout history by different cultures. Pigeon post is thought to have Persians roots and was used by the Romans to aid their military, frontinus said that Julius Caesar used pigeons as messengers in his conquest of Gaul. The Greeks also conveyed the names of the victors at the Olympic Games to various cities using homing pigeons, in the early 19th century, the Dutch government used the system in Java and Sumatra. And in 1849, Paul Julius Reuter started a service to fly stock prices between Aachen and Brussels, a service that operated for a year until the gap in the telegraph link was closed. Sir Charles Wheatstone and Sir William Fothergill Cooke invented the telegraph in 1837. Also, the first commercial electrical telegraph is purported to have constructed by Wheatstone and Cooke. Both inventors viewed their device as an improvement to the electromagnetic telegraph not as a new device, samuel Morse independently developed a version of the electrical telegraph that he unsuccessfully demonstrated on 2 September 1837
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History of telecommunication
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The history of telecommunication began with the use of smoke signals and drums in Africa, the Americas and parts of Asia. In the 1790s, the first fixed semaphore systems emerged in Europe and this article details the history of telecommunication and the individuals who helped make telecommunication systems what they are today. The history of telecommunication is an important part of the history of communication. Early telecommunications included smoke signals and drums, talking drums were used by natives in Africa, New Guinea and South America, and smoke signals in North America and China. Contrary to what one might think, these systems were used to do more than merely announce the presence of a military camp. In Rabbinical Judaism a signal was given by means of kerchiefs or flags at intervals along the way back to the high priest to indicate the goat for Azazel had been pushed from the cliff, greek hydraulic semaphore systems were used as early as the 4th century BC. The hydraulic semaphores, which worked with water filled vessels and visual signals, however, they could only utilize a very limited range of pre-determined messages, and as with all such optical telegraphs could only be deployed during good visibility conditions. During the Middle Ages, chains of beacons were used on hilltops as a means of relaying a signal. Beacon chains suffered the drawback that they could pass a single bit of information. One notable instance of their use was during the Spanish Armada, french engineer Claude Chappe began working on visual telegraphy in 1790, using pairs of clocks whose hands pointed at different symbols. These did not prove quite viable at long distances, and Chappe revised his model to use two sets of jointed wooden beams, operators moved the beams using cranks and wires. He built his first telegraph line between Lille and Paris, followed by a line from Strasbourg to Paris, in 1794, a Swedish engineer, Abraham Edelcrantz built a quite different system from Stockholm to Drottningholm. As opposed to Chappes system which involved pulleys rotating beams of wood, however semaphore as a communication system suffered from the need for skilled operators and expensive towers often at intervals of only ten to thirty kilometres. As a result, the last commercial line was abandoned in 1880, experiments on communication with electricity, initially unsuccessful, started in about 1726. Scientists including Laplace, Ampère, and Gauss were involved, both their designs employed multiple wires in order to visually represent almost all Latin letters and numerals. Thus, messages could be conveyed electrically up to a few kilometers, the telegraph receivers operator would visually observe the bubbles and could then record the transmitted message, albeit at a very low baud rate. The first working telegraph was built by Francis Ronalds in 1816, Charles Wheatstone and William Fothergill Cooke patented a five-needle, six-wire system, which entered commercial use in 1838. It used the deflection of needles to represent messages and started operating over twenty-one kilometres of the Great Western Railway on 9 April 1839, both Wheatstone and Cooke viewed their device as an improvement to the electromagnetic telegraph not as a new device
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Beacon
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A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location. When used in fashion, beacons can be considered a form of optical telegraphy. Beacons help guide navigators to their destinations, types of navigational beacons include radar reflectors, radio beacons, sonic and visual signals. Visual beacons range from small, single-pile structures to large lighthouses or light stations, lighted beacons are called lights, unlighted beacons are called daybeacons. As signals, beacons are an ancient form of telegraph and were part of a relay league. Systems of this kind have existed for centuries over much of the world, the ancient Romans used beacons and beacons figure on several occasions on the column of Trajan. It was devised by Leo the Mathematician for Emperor Theophilos, but either abolished or radically curtailed by Theophilos son and successor, Michael III. Beacons were later used in Greece as well, while the parts of the beacon system in Anatolia seem to have been reactivated in the 12th century by Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. In Scandinavia many hill forts were part of networks to warn against invading pillagers. In Finland, these beacons were called vainovalkeat, persecution fires, or vartiotulet, guard fires, in Wales, the Brecon Beacons were named for beacons used to warn of approaching English raiders. In England, the most famous examples are the used in Elizabethan England to warn of the approaching Spanish Armada. Many hills in England were named Beacon Hill after such beacons, in the Scottish borders country, a system of beacon fires was at one time established to warn of incursions by the English. Hume and Eggerstone castles and Soltra Edge were part of this network, the Great Wall of China is also a beacon network. In Spain, the border of Granada in the territory of the Crown of Castile had a beacon network to warn against Moorish raiders. Vehicular beacons are rotating or flashing lights affixed to the top of a vehicle to attract the attention of surrounding vehicles, emergency vehicles such as fire engines, ambulances, police cars, tow trucks, construction vehicles, and snow-removal vehicles carry beacon lights. Beacons may be constructed with halogen bulbs similar to those used in vehicle headlamps, xenon flashtubes, incandescent and xenon light sources require the vehicle’s engine to continue running to ensure that the battery is not depleted when the lights are used for a prolonged period. The low power consumption of LEDs allows the engine to remain turned off while the lights operate nodes. Beacons and bonfires are used to mark occasions and celebrate events
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History of broadcasting
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The first broadcasting of a radio transmission consisted of Morse code was made from a temporary station set up by Guglielmo Marconi in 1895. This followed on from pioneering work in the field by Alessandro Volta, André-Marie Ampère, Georg Ohm, James Clerk Maxwell, the broadcasting of music and talk via radio started experimentally around 1905-1906, and commercially around 1920 to 1923. VHF stations started 30 to 35 years later, when people started broadcasting television the first movie that was shown was Batman curse of the green pearl it was 10 minutes long. In Britain this system was known as Electrophone, and was available as early as 1895 or 1899, in Hungary, it was called Telefon Hírmondó, and in France, Théâtrophone ). The Wikipedia Telefon Hírmondó page includes a 1907 program guide which looks similar to the types of schedules used by many broadcasting stations some 20 or 30 years later. By the 1950s, virtually every country had a broadcasting system, today, most countries have evolved into a dual system, including the UK. By 1955, practically every family in North America and Western Europe, a dramatic change came in the 1960s with the introduction of small inexpensive portable transistor radio, the greatly expanded ownership and usage. Access became practically universal across the world, Australia developed its own system, through its own engineers, manufacturers, retailers, newspapers, entertainment services, and news agencies. The government set up the first radio system, and business interests marginalized the hobbyists, the Labor Party was especially interested in radio because it allowed them to bypass the newspapers, which were mostly controlled by the opposition. Both parties agreed on the need for a system, and in 1932 set up the Australian Broadcasting Commission. The first commercial broadcasters, originally known as B class stations, were on the air as early as 1925, the number of stations remained relatively dormant throughout World War II and in the post-war era. The broadcasting system was deregulated in 1992, except that there were limits on foreign ownership. By 2000,99 percent of Australians owned at least one television set, Australian radio hams can be traced to the early 1900s. The 1905 Wireless Telegraphy Act whilst acknowledging the existence of wireless telgraphy, in 1906, the first official Morse code transmission in Australia was by the Marconi Company between Queenscliff, Victoria and Devonport, Tasmania. The first broadcast of music was made during a demonstration on 13 August 1919 by Ernest Fisk of AWA – Amalgamated Wireless, a number of amateurs commenced broadcasting music in 1920 and 1921. 2CM was run by Charles MacLuran who started the station in 1921 with regular Sunday evening broadcasts from the Wentworth Hotel, 2CM is often regarded as Australias first, regular, non-official station. It was not until November 1923 when the government finally gave its approval for a number of officially recognised medium wave stations, all stations operated under a unique Sealed Set system under which each set was sealed to the frequency of one station. Part of the price of the set went to the government via the Postmaster-Generals Department, apart from extremely limited advertising, this was the broadcasters only source of income
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Cable television
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This contrasts with broadcast television, in which the television signal is transmitted over the air by radio waves and received by a television antenna attached to the television. FM radio programming, high-speed Internet, telephone services, and similar non-television services may also be provided through these cables, analog television was standard in the 20th century, but since the 2000s, cable systems have been upgraded to digital cable operation. A cable channel is a television network available via cable television, alternative terms include non-broadcast channel or programming service, the latter being mainly used in legal contexts. Examples of cable/satellite channels/cable networks available in many countries are HBO, MTV, Cartoon Network, E. Eurosport, the abbreviation CATV is often used for cable television. It originally stood for Community Access Television or Community Antenna Television, in areas where over-the-air TV reception was limited by distance from transmitters or mountainous terrain, large community antennas were constructed, and cable was run from them to individual homes. The origins of cable broadcasting for radio are even older as radio programming was distributed by cable in some European cities as far back as 1924, Cable television has gone through a series of steps of evolution in the United States and Canada. Particularly in Canada, communities with their own signals were fertile cable markets, as viewers wanted to receive American signals. Early systems carried only a maximum of seven channels, using 2,4,5 or 6,7,9,11 and 13, as the equipment was unable to confine the signal discreetly within the assigned channel bandwidth. The reason 4 and 5 along with 6 and 7 could be used together was because of the 4 MHz gap between 4 and 5 and the nearly 90 MHz gap between 6 and 7. Even though eight channels are listed, in systems that maximized 7 channels. As equipment improved, all channels could be utilized, except where a local VHF television station broadcast. Local broadcast channels were not usable for signals deemed to be priority, later, the cable operators began to carry FM radio stations, and encouraged subscribers to connect their FM stereo sets to cable. Before stereo and bilingual TV sound became common, Pay-TV channel sound was added to the FM stereo cable line-ups, about this time, operators expanded beyond the 12-channel dial to use the midband and superband VHF channels adjacent to the high band 7-13 of North American television frequencies. Some operators as in Cornwall, Ontario, used a dual distribution network with Channels 2-13 on each of the two cables, during the 1980s, United States regulations not unlike public, educational, and government access created the beginning of cable-originated live television programming. These stations evolved partially into todays over-the-air digital subchannels, where a main broadcast TV station e. g, many live local programs with local interests were subsequently created all over the United States in most major television markets in the early 1980s. This evolved into todays many cable-only broadcasts of diverse programming, including cable-only produced television movies and miniseries, Cable specialty channels, starting with channels oriented to show movies and large sporting or performance events, diversified further, and narrowcasting became common. By the late 1980s, cable-only signals outnumbered broadcast signals on cable systems, by the mid-1980s in Canada, cable operators were allowed by the regulator to enter into distribution contracts with cable networks on their own. By the 1990s, tiers became common, with customers able to subscribe to different tiers to obtain different selections of additional channels above the basic selection, by subscribing to additional tiers, customers could get specialty channels, movie channels, and foreign channels
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Communications satellite
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Communications satellites are used for television, telephone, radio, internet, and military applications. There are over 2,000 communications satellites in Earth’s orbit, Wireless communication uses electromagnetic waves to carry signals. These waves require line-of-sight, and are thus obstructed by the curvature of the Earth, the purpose of communications satellites is to relay the signal around the curve of the Earth allowing communication between widely separated points. Communications satellites use a range of radio and microwave frequencies. To avoid signal interference, international organizations have regulations for which frequency ranges or bands certain organizations are allowed to use and this allocation of bands minimizes the risk of signal interference. The concept of the communications satellite was first proposed by Arthur C. Clarke, building on work by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and on the 1929 work by Herman Potočnik Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums — der Raketen-motor, in October 1945 Clarke published an article titled Extraterrestrial Relays in the British magazine Wireless World. The article described the fundamentals behind the deployment of artificial satellites in geostationary orbits for the purpose of relaying radio signals, thus, Arthur C. Clarke is often quoted as being the inventor of the communications satellite and the term Clarke Belt employed as a description of the orbit. Decades later a project named Communication Moon Relay was a project carried out by the United States Navy. Its objective was to develop a secure and reliable method of communication by using the Moon as a passive reflector. The first artificial Earth satellite was Sputnik 1, put into orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4,1957, it was equipped with an on-board radio-transmitter that worked on two frequencies,20.005 and 40.002 MHz. Sputnik 1 was launched as a step in the exploration of space, while incredibly important it was not placed in orbit for the purpose of sending data from one point on earth to another. And it was the first artificial satellite in the leading to todays satellite communications. The first artificial satellite used solely to further advances in communications was a balloon named Echo 1. Echo 1 was the worlds first artificial communications satellite capable of relaying signals to other points on Earth and it soared 1,600 kilometres above the planet after its Aug.12,1960 launch, yet relied on humanitys oldest flight technology — ballooning. Launched by NASA, Echo 1 was a 30-metre aluminized PET film balloon served as a passive reflector for radio communications. The worlds first inflatable satellite — or satelloon, as they were informally known — helped lay the foundation of todays satellite communications, the idea behind a communications satellite is simple, Send data up into space and beam it back down to another spot on the globe. Echo 1 accomplished this by serving as an enormous mirror,10 stories tall
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Computer network
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A computer network or data network is a telecommunications network which allows nodes to share resources. In computer networks, networked computing devices exchange data with other using a data link. The connections between nodes are established using either cable media or wireless media, the best-known computer network is the Internet. Network computer devices that originate, route and terminate the data are called network nodes, nodes can include hosts such as personal computers, phones, servers as well as networking hardware. Two such devices can be said to be networked together when one device is able to exchange information with the other device, Computer networks differ in the transmission medium used to carry their signals, communications protocols to organize network traffic, the networks size, topology and organizational intent. In most cases, application-specific communications protocols are layered over other more general communications protocols and this formidable collection of information technology requires skilled network management to keep it all running reliably. The chronology of significant computer-network developments includes, In the late 1950s, in 1960, the commercial airline reservation system semi-automatic business research environment went online with two connected mainframes. Licklider developed a group he called the Intergalactic Computer Network. In 1964, researchers at Dartmouth College developed the Dartmouth Time Sharing System for distributed users of computer systems. The same year, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a group supported by General Electric and Bell Labs used a computer to route. Throughout the 1960s, Leonard Kleinrock, Paul Baran, and Donald Davies independently developed network systems that used packets to transfer information between computers over a network, in 1965, Thomas Marill and Lawrence G. Roberts created the first wide area network. This was an precursor to the ARPANET, of which Roberts became program manager. Also in 1965, Western Electric introduced the first widely used telephone switch that implemented true computer control, in 1972, commercial services using X.25 were deployed, and later used as an underlying infrastructure for expanding TCP/IP networks. In July 1976, Robert Metcalfe and David Boggs published their paper Ethernet, Distributed Packet Switching for Local Computer Networks, in 1979, Robert Metcalfe pursued making Ethernet an open standard. In 1976, John Murphy of Datapoint Corporation created ARCNET, a network first used to share storage devices. In 1995, the transmission speed capacity for Ethernet increased from 10 Mbit/s to 100 Mbit/s, by 1998, Ethernet supported transmission speeds of a Gigabit. Subsequently, higher speeds of up to 100 Gbit/s were added, the ability of Ethernet to scale easily is a contributing factor to its continued use. Providing access to information on shared storage devices is an important feature of many networks, a network allows sharing of files, data, and other types of information giving authorized users the ability to access information stored on other computers on the network
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Drums in communication
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Developed and used by cultures living in forested areas, drums served as an early form of long-distance communication, and were used during ceremonial and religious functions. While this type of hour-glass shaped instrument can be modulated quite closely, its range is limited to a gathering or market-place, ceremonial functions could include dance, rituals, story-telling and communication of points of order. Message drums, or more properly slit gongs, with chambers and long. Variations in the thickness of the walls would vary the tones when struck by heavy wooden drum sticks, while some were simple utilitarian pieces they could also be highly elaborate works of sculpture while still retaining their function. Often there are small stands under each end of the drum to keep it off of the ground and these drums were made out of hollowed logs. The bigger the log, the sound would be made. A long slit would be cut in one side of the tree trunk, next, the log would be hollowed out through the slit, leaving lips on each side of the opening. A drum could be tuned to produce a note and a higher note. For that it would need to be hollowed out more under one lip than under the other, the drums lips are hit with sticks, beating out rhythms of high and low notes. Under ideal conditions, the sound can be understood at 3 to 7 miles, the talking drums or jungle drums is also a euphemism for gossip – similar to the grapevine. In Africa, New Guinea and the tropical America, people have used drum telegraphy to communicate each other from far away for centuries. An African message can be transmitted at the speed of 100 miles in an hour, among the famous communication drums are the drums of West Africa. From regions known today as Nigeria and Ghana they spread across West Africa and to America, there they were banned because they were being used by the slaves to communicate over long distances in a code unknown to their enslavers. Talking drums were used in East Africa and are described by Andreus Bauer in the Street of Caravans while acting as security guard in the Wissmann Truppe for the caravan of Charles Stokes. The traditional drumming found in Africa is actually of three different types, firstly, a rhythm can represent an idea. Secondly it can repeat the accentual profile of an utterance or thirdly it can simply be subject to musical laws. Drum communication methods are not languages in their own right, they are based on actual natural languages, the sounds produced are conventionalized or idiomatic signals based on speech patterns. The messages are normally very stereotyped and context-dependent and they lack the ability to form new combinations and expressions
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Electrical telegraph
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An electrical telegraph is a telegraph that uses electrical signals, usually conveyed via dedicated telecommunication lines or radio. From early studies of electricity, electrical phenomena were known to travel with great speed, in 1753 an anonymous writer in the Scots Magazine suggested an electrostatic telegraph. In 1774 Georges-Louis Le Sage realised an early electric telegraph, the telegraph had a separate wire for each of the 26 letters of the alphabet and its range was only between two rooms of his home. In 1800 Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, allowing for a current of electricity for experimentation. Both their designs employed multiple wires to represent almost all Latin letters, thus, messages could be conveyed electrically up to a few kilometers, with each of the telegraph receivers wires immersed in a separate glass tube of acid. The telegraph receivers operator would watch the bubbles and could record the transmitted message. This is in contrast to later telegraphs that used a single wire, hans Christian Ørsted discovered in 1820 that an electric current produces a magnetic field which will deflect a compass needle. In the same year Johann Schweigger invented the galvanometer, with a coil of wire around a compass, in 1824, Peter Barlow said that such a system only worked to a distance of about 200 feet, and so was impractical. In 1825 William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet, with a winding of uninsulated wire on a piece of varnished iron. During his tenure at The Albany Academy from 1826 to 1832, in 1835 Joseph Henry and Edward Davy invented the critical electrical relay. Davys relay used a needle which dipped into a mercury contact when an electric current passed through the surrounding coil. This allowed a weak current to switch a larger current to operate a powerful local electromagnet over very long distances, Davy demonstrated his telegraph system in Regents Park in 1837 and was granted a patent on 4 July 1838. He also developed an electric relay, the first working telegraph was built by the English inventor Francis Ronalds in 1816 and used static electricity. At the family home on Hammersmith Mall, he set up a subterranean system in a 175 yard long trench as well as an eight mile long overhead telegraph. The lines were connected at both ends to revolving dials marked with the letters of the alphabet and electrical impulses sent along the wire were used to transmit messages, offering his invention to the Admiralty in July 1816, it was rejected as “wholly unnecessary”. Elements of Ronalds’ design were utilised in the subsequent commercialisation of the telegraph over 20 years later, the telegraph invented by Baron Schilling von Canstatt in 1832 had a transmitting device which consisted of a keyboard with 16 black-and-white keys. These served for switching the electric current, the receiving instrument consisted of six galvanometers with magnetic needles, suspended from silk threads. Both stations of Shillings telegraph were connected by eight wires, six were connected with the galvanometers, one served for the return current, when at the starting station the operator pressed a key, the corresponding pointer was deflected at the receiving station
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Fax
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Fax, sometimes called telecopying or telefax, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material, normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device. The receiving fax machine interprets the tones and reconstructs the image, early systems used direct conversions of image darkness to audio tone in a continuous or analog manner. Since the 1980s, most machines modulate the audio frequencies using a digital representation of the page which is compressed to quickly transmit areas which are all-white or all-black. Scottish inventor Alexander Bain worked on chemical mechanical fax type devices and he received British patent 9745 on May 27,1843 for his Electric Printing Telegraph. Frederick Bakewell made several improvements on Bains design and demonstrated a telefax machine, the Pantelegraph was invented by the Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli. He introduced the first commercial service between Paris and Lyon in 1865, some 11 years before the invention of the telephone. In 1880, English inventor Shelford Bidwell constructed the scanning phototelegraph that was the first telefax machine to scan any two-dimensional original, previously, photographs had been sent over the radio using this process. The Western Union Deskfax fax machine, announced in 1948, was a machine that fit comfortably on a desktop. As a designer for the Radio Corporation of America, in 1924, Richard H. Ranger invented the wireless photoradiogram, or transoceanic radio facsimile, the forerunner of today’s fax machines. A photograph of President Calvin Coolidge sent from New York to London on November 29,1924 became the first photo picture reproduced by transoceanic radio facsimile, commercial use of Ranger’s product began two years later. Also in 1924, Herbert E. Ives of AT&T Corporation transmitted and reconstructed the first color facsimile, around 1952 or so, Finch Facsimile, a highly developed machine, was described in detail in a book, it was never manufactured in quantity. By the late 1940s, radiofax receivers were sufficiently miniaturized to be fitted beneath the dashboard of Western Unions Telecar telegram delivery vehicles, in the 1960s, the United States Army transmitted the first photograph via satellite facsimile to Puerto Rico from the Deal Test Site using the Courier satellite. Radio fax is still in limited use today for transmitting weather charts, in 1964, Xerox Corporation introduced what many consider to be the first commercialized version of the modern fax machine, under the name or Long Distance Xerography. This model was superseded two years later with a unit that would set the standard for fax machines for years to come. Up until this point facsimile machines were expensive and hard to operate. In 1966, Xerox released the Magnafax Telecopiers, a smaller and this unit was far easier to operate and could be connected to any standard telephone line. This machine was capable of transmitting a letter-sized document in about six minutes, the first sub-minute, digital fax machine was developed by Dacom, which built on digital data compression technology originally developed at Lockheed for satellite communication. By the late 1970s, many companies around the world, entered the fax market, very shortly after a new wave of more compact, faster and efficient fax machines would hit the market
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Heliograph
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A heliograph is a wireless solar telegraph that signals by flashes of sunlight reflected by a mirror. The flashes are produced by momentarily pivoting the mirror, or by interrupting the beam with a shutter, the heliograph was a simple but effective instrument for instantaneous optical communication over long distances during the late 19th and early 20th century. Its main uses were military, survey and forest protection work, heliographs were standard issue in the British and Australian armies until the 1960s, and were used by the Pakistani army as late as 1975. Most heliographs were variants of the British Army Mance Mark V version and it used a mirror with a small unsilvered spot in the centre. The sender aligned the heliograph to the target by looking at the target in the mirror. Keeping his head still, he adjusted the aiming rod so its cross wires bisected the target. This indicated that the sunbeam was pointing at the target, the flashes were produced by a keying mechanism that tilted the mirror up a few degrees at the push of a lever at the back of the instrument. If the sun was in front of the sender, its rays were reflected directly from this mirror to the receiving station. If the sun was behind the sender, the rod was replaced by a second mirror, to capture the sunlight from the main mirror. The U. S. Signal Corps heliograph mirror did not tilt and this type produced flashes by a shutter mounted on a second tripod. The heliograph had some great advantages, however, anyone in the beam with the correct knowledge could intercept signals without being detected. In the Boer War, where both sides used heliographs, tubes were used to decrease the dispersion of the beam.5 degrees to 15 degrees. The distance that signals could be seen depended on the clarity of the sky. A clear line of sight was required, and since the Earths surface is curved, under ordinary conditions, a flash could be seen 30 miles with the naked eye, and much farther with a telescope. The maximum range was considered to be 10 miles for each inch of mirror diameter, mirrors ranged from 1.5 inches to 12 inches or more. The record distance was established by a detachment of U. S, the German professor Carl Friedrich Gauss of the University of Göttingen developed and used a predecessor of the heliograph in 1821. His device directed a beam of sunlight to a distant station to be used as a marker for geodetic survey work. Similarly, the story that a shield was used as a heliograph at the Battle of Marathon is a modern myth, what Herodotus did write was that someone was accused of having arranged to hold up a shield as a signal
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