{"id":2210,"date":"2021-11-17T04:25:31","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T04:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/?p=2210"},"modified":"2021-12-06T02:08:27","modified_gmt":"2021-12-06T02:08:27","slug":"one-hundred-years-ago-today-prof-jacks-public-radio-broadcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/one-hundred-years-ago-today-prof-jacks-public-radio-broadcast\/","title":{"rendered":"One hundred years ago today: Prof Jack’s public radio broadcast"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Post researched and written by David Murray, Archivist<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

The University of Otago\u2019s own Professor Robert Jack made the first public radio broadcast in New Zealand one hundred years ago today, on 17 November 1921. Jim Sullivan records<\/a> that he “continued the transmissions two nights a week and the programmes \u2013 a mixture of announcements, live music, and gramophone records \u2013 were heard in all parts of the country and even on a ship near the Australian coast.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n

Robert Jack is seated at the centre in this photograph of the university\u2019s Physics Department staff and senior students, taken in 1926.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Professor Jack\u2019s colleague Agnes Blackie (seated on the left in the photo) described him: “In everything, Dr Jack\u2019s aim was perfection. This showed itself in many ways: the laboratory place-cards that he printed so beautifully by hand, the finely-written lists, the tidiness of the department. His standard for himself was also his standard for his students and woe-betide them if through carelessness, they fell short of it. Dr Jack\u2019s insistence on punctuality has become legendary: ‘You\u2019re late, Mr Smith.’ ‘No I don\u2019t think so; the clock is just striking,’ ‘Well, you\u2019re nearly late!’ Yet he could easily be disarmed by the right approach as in the case of the student who when asked fiercely whether had had any excuses for lateness replied, ‘Plenty, Doctor, but no reasons.'”<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

“Dr Jack was a splendid lecturer, illustrating his lectures with experiments skillfully demonstrated and enjoyed as much by the lecturer as by the students. His popular lectures for the public of Dunedin were great occasions: lecture-room packed, lecture-bench crowded with apparatus and the audience lifted out of themselves by the lecturer\u2019s own enthusiasm.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

“To a very sensitive nature was added the strain of nerves stretched taut by serious overworking. It was, however, only a very blind student who did not see through the protective barrier of sternness to the warmly human man behind.” (ref: MS-4443\/051).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
The photograph is signed on the back by: R. Jack, Agnes R. Blackie (seated on the left), Robert R. Nimmo (seated next to Jack), Helen C. Thomson, Phyllis J. Sutton, Evelyn A. Franklin, Allan G. Harrington, James K. Horn, William M. Somerville, Harold M. Taylor, Doris M.A. Wheatley (ref: MS-3846 Box 2).<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Post researched and written by David Murray, Archivist The University of Otago\u2019s own Professor Robert Jack made the first public radio broadcast in New Zealand one hundred years ago today, on 17 November 1921. Jim Sullivan records that he “continued the transmissions two nights a week and the programmes \u2013 a mixture of announcements, live […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27445,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[42554,65031,29380],"class_list":["post-2210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-university-of-otago","tag-broadcasting","tag-department-of-physics","tag-radio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27445"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/thehockenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}