HISTORY OF RECORDING IN TASMANIA

 The arrival of radio stations such as 7ZL, 7HT and 7HO; the introduction of microphones and electrical recording; broadcasts, transcription discs and recordings made for servicemen during the war..

When broadcasting began to establish itself in Tasmania during the 1920s, radio was principally a live medium. Announcers, musicians, actors and speakers gathered around studio microphones and their performances went directly to air. A program that was not heard at the time of transmission was usually lost. Commercial gramophone records could provide music between live items, but recording a complete Tasmanian program for later use required specialised equipment that was expensive, technically demanding and initially rare.
The surviving evidence shows that Tasmania’s broadcasters soon became more than transmitters of live entertainment. By the late 1930s, stations in both Launceston and Hobart were making their own recordings. They used large electrical transcription discs to preserve local performers, produce drama and sponsored features, repeat programs and prepare material that could be used at another time or place

Wills and Co., 7BN and 7LA 
An important northern Tasmanian connection was Wills and Co. Pty Ltd of Launceston.
The company had dealt in talking machines from the early years of the century and was closely involved in the pioneering days of local broadcasting.
It operated an early station under the call sign 7BN and was credited with obtaining the first broadcasting licence in Northern Tasmania. The later association between Wills and Co. and 7LA brought the retailing and reproduction of recorded sound together with radio transmission.
On 3 September 1937, a new recording and broadcasting studio at the company’s Launceston premises was officially opened by A. Wardlaw MLC. Norman Findlay, managing director of 7LA, introduced the ceremony, which was carried by the station. The studio was claimed to be the first of its kind in Tasmania.
The opening demonstrated exactly what the equipment could do. Prominent Launceston artists performed during the first part of the program. Their items were recorded onto discs and some were replayed during the second half of the same broadcast. Listeners were therefore able to hear a local performance, followed shortly afterwards by its recorded reproduction.
This was a notable step. The radio station was no longer dependent entirely upon live presentation or commercially issued records from elsewhere. It could make a recording of Tasmanian performers and place that recording within its own program.
Whether any of the discs made at the opening survive is not yet known, and the artists have still to be identified.

Electrical transcription at 7EX.
 In April 1938, 7EX announced the successful production of its first record for studio use. The recording was the opening instalment of a sponsored series titled The Story of Australia’s V.C.s. Speech and music were synchronised by working between two studios, suggesting a carefully planned dramatic production rather than the simple recording of a single live performance.The newspaper report gives an unusually clear description of the format. The program was recorded electrically on a 16-inch transcription disc rotating at 33⅓ revolutions per minute. This was much slower than the usual 78 rpm commercial record and allowed substantially longer playing time. The first program ran for about twelve minutes, while the disc was said to accommodate as much as fifteen minutes.
The recording could be played within minutes of completion. The engineers could also monitor it while it was being made, with reproduced sound following the original by about half a second. This was probably achieved with a playback pickup mounted behind the cutting head. The station was particularly pleased by the clarity of the result and the negligible surface noise.The phrase “first recording at 7EX” must be interpreted carefully. It referred to the station’s first successful record made with its own new equipment, not the first sound recording made anywhere in Tasmania.
 
Wills and Co. and 7LA had already demonstrated disc recording publicly during the previous year. Hobart stations 7HO and 7HT retrospective account published in 1951 stated that Hobart commercial stations 7HO and 7HT both installed facilities in 1939 for making immediate-playback acetate recordings. Like 7EX, they used large 16-inch discs operating at 33⅓ rpm, capable of carrying approximately fifteen minutes of uninterrupted program material.These were commonly called acetate recordings, although the recording surface was generally a lacquer coating applied to a metal base. A cutting stylus engraved the modulated groove directly into the surface. Unlike a commercially pressed record, the resulting disc could be replayed immediately and was usually made in only one or a few copies.
For a radio station, the advantages were considerable. A speech, interview, dramatic episode, musical performance or sponsored feature could be recorded in advance, checked and placed into a later program. An item could be repeated, retained for reference or possibly exchanged with another station. The discs also reduced some of the risks of live broadcasting, although they created new demands for accurate timing and careful handling.
 
The 1951 account was written more than a decade after the installations and should eventually be checked against contemporary reports from 1939. Nevertheless, it provides strong evidence that both Hobart commercial stations had entered the era of local disc recording before the Second World War.
 
Recording changed radio production. Electrical transcription did more than preserve what happened before a microphone. It changed the way programs could be made. Speech, music and effects could be coordinated across studios; sponsored series could be prepared before transmission; local events could be recorded for later use; and programs no longer had to exist only at the instant they went to air. There were still strict limitations. Editing a disc was far more difficult than editing later magnetic tape. Mistakes could require another performance and another blank disc. Long programs had to be divided between sides or several discs, and the soft recording surfaces could be damaged by repeated playing or poor storage. Many recordings were probably discarded when their immediate broadcasting purpose had ended. This may explain why newspaper descriptions of early Tasmanian recordings survive more readily than the recordings themselves. Stations were creating sound documents, but they were not necessarily thinking of them as permanent historical records.
 
Radio recording during the warThe Second World War greatly increased the importance of recorded and relayed radio. Stations carried news, public information, appeals, speeches, entertainment and community events. Disc recording allowed material to be prepared or retained, while programs produced elsewhere reached Tasmania as transcription recordings or through network relays. The war also accelerated the development of portable magnetic recording overseas. Wire recorders had been developed for military and communications purposes, and surplus American machines later appeared in Australia. Tasmanian stations did not immediately abandon their disc cutters when magnetic recording arrived. Instead, the newer portable systems supplemented the established transcription-disc equipment.
 
By 1945, Tasmania’s radio stations had therefore passed through an important technological transition. Broadcasting had begun as a predominantly live activity, but local stations could now create, replay and preserve their own programs. The next period would bring magnetic wire, portable outside recording and, eventually, tape—but those developments rested upon the experience gained in Tasmania’s disc-recording studios during the late 1930s and war years.

Evidence still to be found.  This account remains a beginning. Further research is needed to identify the equipment installed at each station, the engineers who operated it, the artists and actors recorded, and the programs that survive. Particularly important targets include the discs made at the 1937 Wills and Co. opening, episodes of The Story of Australia’s V.C.s, and pre-1945 acetate recordings from 7LA, 7EX, 7HO and 7HT.
There is also an unresolved report of a station using a film-based audio-recording process so that programs could be physically sent to other stations. If recovered, that article may add another format—optical or mechanically cut film transcription—to Tasmania’s early broadcasting history.
Principal newspaper evidence used in this draft - The Mercury, 4 September 1937 — opening of the Wills and Co. recording and broadcasting studio, LauncestonThe Examiner, 15 April 1938 — first successful 7EX studio transcriptionThe Mercury, 13 August 1951 — retrospective technical history of 7HO and 7HT, including the statement that both installed acetate-disc recording in 1939.
This is a working narrative. Statements derived from retrospective newspaper reports should be checked against contemporary records, surviving equipment, station papers and original recordings before final publication.