It’s fair to say there was a lot of anger in Mount Isa and Charters Towers (Dalrymple) when their state seats were abolished in the recent redistribution. But there was also bewilderment at the name of their new merged seat, Traeger. But who or what was Traeger?
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According to the Queensland Redistribition Commission the proposed changes made it appropriate to rename the district Traeger, honouring Alfred Hermann Traeger (1895-1980).
Traeger was the inventor of the pedal-powered radio, which proved vital to the success of the Royal Australian Flying Doctor Service.
Traeger was born August 2, 1895 near Dimboola, in Victoria’s Wimmera to South Australian parents whose own parents had migrated from Germany in 1848.
Alfred was known as a “curious, patient, precise child” but he was also inventive.
Aged 12 he made his first telephone receiver which transmitted between the toolshed and his house.
After studying mechanical and electrical engineering at the South Australian School of Mines and Industries he worked for the Metropolitan Tramways Trust and the Postmaster-General's Department.
But his German name counted against him in the First World War when his application to join the Australian Flying Corps was refused.
Later Traeger work in Adelaide as a mechanic, handling car generators and electrical repairs.
Intrigued by radio, he obtained an amateur operator's licence and built his first pedal transmitter-receiver.
Hearing that John Flynn was planning his Australian Inland Mission Aerial Medical Service for remote communities, Traeger went to work for him in 1926, at £500 a year.
After an outback tour of duty doing radio experiments in the Territory, Traeger began work on a transceiver for the flying doctor network.
The sets had to be cheap, durable, small and easy to operate.
Experimenting with bicycle pedals to drive the generator, he found a person could easily power 20 watts at 300 volts pressure. He enclosed the fly-wheel and gears in cylindrical metal housing, with pedals and a cast base screwed to the floor under a table. The transceiver went into a box with a master switch to separate the transmitter from the receiver.
Traeger’s first test transmission was conducted in 1929, at the Augustus Downs Station in Queensland.
When the first pedal sets to Queensland in 1929 to almost immediate revolutionary effect killing the tyranny of inland distance.
But he wasn’t done yet.
In 1933 he invented an accessory, a a typewriter Morse keyboard, widely used until the advent of radio telephony.
In 1939 the sets adopted a vibrator unit instead of a pedal.
The emergency call system was not only used by the flying doctors but also hospitals, the School of the Air, councils, taxis and airdromes.
A modest and shy man, Treager was deservedly honoured with an OBE in 1944.
Cloncurry’s John Flynn Place honours Alfred Traeger with a “Radio Gallery” which is full of historical information and the display contains an original pedal radio that once belonged to him.
Incredibly pedal radios are still in use today across large parts of Africa, now to generate power in rural parts of the continent replacing dangerous kerosene lamps.
Whatever you think of the Redistribution Commission’s decision on Traeger it’s hard to disagree with their reason for the name:
“In recognition of this significant contribution to those living in remote and rural communities, the Commission considers Traeger to be a suitable name for the electorate.”
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
