Traeger, Alfred

Alfred Traeger was born in 1895 and grew up on the family property near Balaklava. From an early age he demonstrated his interest and skills in telephones and later radio transmission.

In 1907 he astonished his family by building a telephone between the homestead and a barn 50 yards away. He had no commercial equipment- the magnets were made from pitch fork prongs, the diaphragms from tobacco tin lids, and the charcoal for carbon granules came from the kitchen stove.

As Alfred had no inclination towards farming, he studied Mechanical and Electrical Engineering and worked in a variety of jobs until his continuing interest in radio transmission came to the attention of the Reverend John Flynn.

Reverend John Flynn of the Australian Inland Mission established the AIM Aerial Medical Service, which later became the Royal Flying Doctor Service, transporting doctors to the scene of medical emergencies in remote parts of Australia. There was often no telephone or radio link between the remote homesteads and the AIM Aerial Medical Service base, and people had to travel a long way to be able to contact the service.

Traeger worked with Flynn to establish radio communication by Morse code between Alice Springs and the Hermannsburg Mission about 130 kilometres west of Alice Springs, and set up the first base station at Alice Springs– in the geographical centre of the country. Encouraged by Flynn, Traeger began refining the radio equipment and developed a compact generator by which the transceiver could be powered. Finally the difficulty that the radio required two people to work- one to crank the generator and the other to send the Morse code, was resolved late in1927. His generator was driven by the feet, using bicycle pedals from the Malvern Star Company so that a single operator generated power with his feet leaving has hands free to operate the radio itself. On 19 June 1929 the wife of the station manager made the first transmission on the No 1 pedal wireless. In 1931 Traeger added a keyboard, so knowledge of Morse was no longer needed to operate the pedal wireless

The two-way network became the lifeline of outback life. In conjunction with the Flying Doctor Service, it turned Flynn's concept of a mantle of safety into reality and made possible the legendary 'School of the Air'.