Radio station 6WF, now ABC Radio Perth, started broadcasting a century ago on June 4, 1924.
It wasn't founded by the ABC, but was a commercial station operated by Westralian Farmers Co-operative (now Wesfarmers) with the intention of lessening isolation for people in the bush.
According to Wesfarmers official history, the station came about after John Thomson, head of wheat department of the company, was travelling on a rough dirt track in the wheatbelt, on his way to Bruce Rock, when his car got two flat tyres and he was forced to wait four hours for a passer-by to come and help.
It was during those four lonely hours that he reflected on the isolation people in the country experienced and decided wireless telegraphy (radio), which was just emerging in Australia, was the perfect solution.
Operating a radio station was far from the organisation's usual business, but Mr Thomson was able to persuade management that Wesfarmers should bid for the first licence in Perth.
The station was named 6WF, for Wesfarmers.
Mr Thomson envisaged the station providing vital information, agriculture news and commodity prices, as well as concerts and entertainment to people across WA.
It was a considerable investment for the company, which not only built two sound-proof studios in their Wellington Street headquarters, but also two aerial masts on the roof, with a potential transmission range of 960 kilometres.
Because none of its potential listeners owned radio receivers, 6WF's chief engineer Wally Coxon also designed and oversaw the manufacture of Wesfarmers' very own "Mulgaphone" radio, which the company sold to subscribers.
Radios locked to one station
The Commonwealth initially issued broadcasting licences to be used under the "sealed set scheme", where subscribers paid a fee to listen to a particular station and were provided a radio that was locked to only the wavelength the subscriber had paid for.
The sealed set scheme became unworkable within a month of the station's launch, and soon listeners were allowed to tune in to any station, in return for the stations being allowed to run advertising as well as charging subscription fees.
The station opened with great fanfare at 8pm on June 4, 1924, with a speech from the premier, Phillip Collier, and performances from a live orchestra and several singers.
"An installation of this nature must serve to overcome the isolation which is one of the disabilities of present-day life in the country," the premier said, in his on-air opening speech.
"It will annihilate distances and bring the people of the outback in touch with everyday life and enjoyment of the city and of other countries."
The station was a success, with listeners as far away as the Goldfields reporting hearing the launch, but for Wesfarmers the burden of running a radio station quickly became apparent.
Hiring musicians and singers was a considerable expense, it was impossible to ensure people who tuned in had paid a subscription fee and the station was running at a loss.
Wesfarmers decided they were happy for someone else to run the station as long as people were still getting the same service, and in 1928, 6WF was sold to the Commonwealth government, and eventually became part the ABC local radio network.
A vital link in the bush
Tara Delandgrafft has been a rural reporter with the ABC, based in Esperance, for 18 years, but her connection to the station goes back generations.
"It informed the way my parents farmed and my grandparents farmed and potentially my great-grandparents," she said.
"In the rural department, which turns 80 next year, the rural reporters were extension officers from the [agriculture] department.
"They were there to teach people how to farm, especially after the war — that was the resource they had.
"They couldn't look something up on Wikipedia or speak to a university lecturer like we can now.
"You could listen to the radio and you learned these really tangible skills about how to farm."
Ms Delandgrafft said the valuable service helped formed a strong bond between the ABC and regional Australia that continued today.
"That trust is still there. Obviously, we've moved away from being the farmer's friend, essentially, to being journalists," she said.
"But it's a really lovely relationship that started out of education."
Tara knows first hand the role that radio plays in providing entertainment, because she grew up on a family farm where her parents didn't get TV until after she had left for university.
"I grew up on the farm south-east of Newdegate. My parents were farmers and my grandparents before them, lifelong listeners of radio as well," she said.
"And that's what we had to listen to, the AM radio.
"I still have a thing for the Travelling Wilburys and all of that music that we heard a lot of on the ABC in the late 80s and the early 90s."
Ms Delandgrafft's first job after graduating from university was with the ABC Rural department.
She said despite technological change, AM radio still played very much the same role in the bush as it did 100 years ago, with many listeners tuning in every day for the weather and market reports on the Country Hour.
"In the regions we don't yet have digital radio and the internet is really intermittent," she said.
"But especially on some of those farms, you could be out the back in a paddock 20km from the house.
"So really, all your options are — when you're going round and around and around for 12, 14 hours on a tractor or a header or whatever it is, or you're driving behind a mob of sheep or cattle — is the AM radio band."
A friendly ear
While the station was mostly lectures and concerts in the early years, by the 1950s it had become more conversational.
Sonia Grant, who started working in the ABC record libraries in 1942, remembers a program presented by long-term announcer John Juan, called Hospital Half Hour, where patients could request songs.
"I think it was the first sort of talkback radio," Ms Grant said.
"It was quite an interesting program because John used to collect all these records and things, and he would have a little chat to the person who had requested it. It was rather fun."
In the early 80s the station also began to take talkback direct from listeners, becoming the station it is today, focusing on the voices and stories of the people of Perth.
"It's the opportunity for the audience to speak directly, live on-air, that makes the station special," Mornings presenter Nadia Mitsopoulos said.
"It's so real and it's so in the moment and so present, and it's not edited.
"I feel like it's a very intimate medium and it feels quite privileged to be able to do that and to understand the impact that you have on people and the connection that it provides."
The calls that change lives
There is one call she'll never forget, from 70-year-old listener, Moss.
"She'd been living in her car for a couple of weeks, and she was listening to my show and we were talking about the housing crisis and she called in and said, 'I'm calling from my car'," Mitsopoulos said.
Moss had been living in her car for two weeks, after her rent was raised beyond what she could afford, and she had been unable to secure a new rental property.
"She said 'I've been living in my car, I don't know what to do'," Mitsopoulos said.
"It was actually gut-wrenching to listen to her and what she was going through.
"And then we got all these phone calls and texts from people saying, 'I can get her somewhere. I've got a place, I've got a room'.
"We ended up getting her accommodation, and then eventually into some permanent housing. And it was just amazing that she had reached out to ABC because she had a story to tell."
Mitsopoulos said talkback also kept presenters and producers on their toes, as they never quite knew what was going to happen on the program next.
"It's very nerve-wracking initially when you start because there is the element of the unknown," she said.
"I've come from a TV background where things were very scripted and you have a lot of control over what goes on TV.
"There's an element of surprise in this, which is actually part of the fun and part of the thrill — and it's what makes it interesting."
Radio here to stay
While the ABC has added multiple digital channels, an array of web content and social media to its output since 6WF was founded in 1924, Mitsopoulos said she didn't think radio was on the way out.
"It's such an important medium, I think, because people will always need to listen to something," she said.
"People will always want to know what is happening in their world.
"And people cannot always be attached to a phone or in front of a newspaper or in front of a television.
"We are such an easy medium, especially now that … you can take us wherever you go with apps and whatever.
"But I just think that it will always be someone's natural instinct, I hope for a while, to just turn on the radio."
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