[http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/fisk-sir-ernest-thomas-6177]
Fisk, Sir Ernest Thomas (1886-1965)
by Murray Goot
Sir Ernest Thomas Fisk (1886-1965), radio pioneer and businessman, was born on 8 August 1886 at Sunbury, Middlesex, England, second child of Thomas Harvey Fisk, builder, and his wife Charlotte Hariette, née Halland. He was educated at local schools, St Mary's and Sunbury Boys'. Although he later enrolled at the United Kingdom College, a private London coaching college, and, in 1917, in the diploma course in the department of economics and commerce at the University of Sydney, he sat for no examinations.
From selling newspapers on Sunbury railway station, Fisk 'graduated in engineering' in the works of Frederick Walton, before joining the British Post Office as one of their earliest wireless telegraphists. In June 1906 Fisk joined the Marconi training school. At Liverpool and Chelmsford he learned morse and wireless telegraphy, qualifying as a radio engineer and operator. From 1909 he worked for American Marconi, demonstrating wireless to the Newfoundland sealers and on the St Lawrence, before returning to Marconi's administrative headquarters in London.
When Fisk first visited Australia in mid-1910 in the Otranto to demonstrate Marconi's apparatus for the Orient Steam Navigation Co., wireless was still largely the preserve of amateur enthusiasts. That year the government let the contract for the construction of two land stations for ships to Australasian Wireless Ltd, a Sydney firm with rights to the patents of Marconi's German rival, Telefunken. In 1911 he returned to Australia as resident engineer to represent the interests of the English Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co. Ltd, trading under several names. His mission was to persuade shipowners to fit Marconi equipment, which he installed and trained telegraphists to operate. He established service depots in Australia and New Zealand. The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 gave business a boost.
In 1912 when the English Marconi company sued the Australian government for infringing their patent (and A.W.L. issued writs against firms using Marconi equipment), the government decided in future to use circuits designed by John Balsillie. Eventually the two settled their differences and in July 1913 formed a new company, Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd, with exclusive rights throughout Australasia to the patents, 'present and future', of both Marconi and Telefunken. The first chairman was (Sir) Hugh Denison; Fisk, a foundation director, was general and technical manager. In 1916 he became managing director and in 1932 chairman.
...
