Australian Radio Badges

One of the areas of Australian Radio that I find interesting is the radio clubs. These groups or clubs are where the audience moved from being passive listeners to actual participants.

Some of the clubs were formed for raising funds for Community projects, War efforts or simply fan clubs for particular Radio Personalities or Shows. More recently the Badges are more a recognition of sponsorships.

There are several very famous Australian Radio Clubs, Smoky Dawson's and of course the most famous of all, The Argonauts Club. Several Clubs shared names across various Radio Stations and I need to explore the relationships between the Stations as well.

It is my intention to choose a club from each issue and try and supply as much information about that club as I can. I am hoping to rely on our readers to volunteer information and memories. After all, I am only a youngster and I missed all these Clubs except The Argonauts.

I have included in this section, examples of Radio Club Badges from my collection as well as from the collections of others who are supporters of this site. I am hoping that the Badges and Club names will jog memories and that either Radio Station Staff or Club Members will send me the information about the Clubs.

The sort of Information I am after would be general, such as:

" When the Club started?
" How Many Members?
" Who started the Club and Why?
" What did the club achieve in its lifetime?
" How many Badges were made and how many re manufactures were there?
" When did the Club cease, if it did?

Any anecdotes or other information about the clubs or badges would be greatly appreciated. The idea of Clubs associated with a media organisation like Radio, TV and Newspapers is pretty much foreign these days and it may well be that this will be our last opportunity to find out more about them. I have contacted various Radio Stations recently and they simply had no idea such clubs existed and no records were kept. With the ownership changes over the years, Radio Station staff have less knowledge of the history of the station than their listeners. A pity, as they lose the understanding of listener loyalty as well. They think the listeners change stations just as fast as the DJs.

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