Harry Kauper a South Australia pioneer in the air and on air: involved in its first aviation firm, earliest radio stations
Lieutenant Harry Kauper (left) and captain Harry Butler with the Red Devil Bristol M1 fighter in Adelaide around 1920. They were partners in Butler-Kauper Aviation at Adelaide's Northfield and then Albert Park (Hendon). Kauper (inset) was likely the maker of radio equipment (at right) from around 1924 used by Adelaide station 5CL where Kauper was chief engineer. With the equipment is Bob Maynard (long-time ABC Classic FM announcer) of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that had its Adelaide start through 5CL.
Including image courtesy Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Harry (Henry) Kauper shaped Adelaide early 20th Century enterprise in the air and on the air as a co founder of South Australia’s first aviation company and starting one of its firstl radio stations.
Born in Melbourne in 1988, Kauper left school to be an automobile mechanic, specialising in electrical systems. His interest in aviation came from seeing, with his mechanic friends Harry Hawker and Harry Busteed, powered flight demonstated by Harry Houdini in 1910 and 1911. Kauper went to England to study aviation. After working for Sunbeam, he was employed from 1912 as a mechanic with Thomas Sopwith’s flying school at Brookland.
Kauper introduced Harry Hawker to Sopwith, who employed him as a mechanic. When the Sopwith Aviation Company started in 1913, Kauper became works foreman. That year, Kauper accompanied Hawker, now a pilot, as his mechanic in the £5,000 Daily Mail circuit of Britain race. They were the only competitors to start but had to withdraw after Hawker damaged the purpose-built floatplane when landing near Dublin. Although they only covered two hirds of the 1,450-miles course, Hawker was awarded £1,000 and the Royal Aeronautical Society’s silver medal: Kauper was given a bronze medal.
In 1914, Kauper went with Hawker to Australia to demonstrate the Sopwith Tabloid floatplane to the Australian government defence department. They returned to England in June and, with World War I starting, Kauper became works manager for Sopwiths. Here he developed the Sopwith-Kauper interrupter gear that allowed a machine gun to fire through a rotating aircraft propeller. First used in April 1916, 3,950 were fitted to Sopwith aircraft during the war.
In 1919, Kauper returned to Australia and formed the Harry J. Butler & Kauper Aviation Co. Ltd, that pioneered commercial aviation in South Australia at Adelaide's Northfield and then Albert Park (Hendon). The business went into liquidation in 1921.
Kauper had become interested in radio and under experimental licence S643 (1919) and he set up station 5BG at the Adelaide suburb of Dulwich in 1920. In 1922, he took part in the first radio telephony tests in South Australia and gave helpful advice to crystal set enthusiasts on his popular Dulwich Calling broadcasts. He addressed radio clubs and the Wireless Institute of Australia. As an experimenter, Kauper was important in developing radio for broadcasting.
Kauper was a partner in the Adelaide Radio Company, manufacturing radio equipment, and was a part-time operator from June 1924 when the company, under contract, loaned its call sign 5DN and equipment to Edward James Hume's experimental station at Adelaide’s Parkside.
Kauper's station 5BG was one of the earliest low-powered crystal-controlled transmitters in Australia. In 1925, his signals were picked up in New York and California —a world record. That year, Kauper and George Towns built the first portable radio for outback missionary John Flynn. Powered by a generator driven by the rear wheel of Flynn's truck, it worked well but Flynn wanted a radio not relying on a fuel supply, In 1926, Kauper introduced Flynn to Alfred Traeger who developed the pedal wireless to be used by the flying doctor service of Australia.
In 1926, Kauper became the chief engineer of 5CL Adelaide (Central Broadcasters Ltd). When 5CL was taken over by the National Broadcasting Service, Kauper in 1930 became chief engineer for 5AD (The Advertiser Broadcasting Network) and, in 1931, supervisory engineer to Melbourne station 3DB, building much of its equipment.
In 1940, Kauper was appointed head the Australian aeronautical inspection directorate’s radio, electrical and instrument section. He inspected equipment being made or repaired for the Royal Australian Air Force by civilian contractors, Although in ill health, he contributed greatly in those early years of the directorate, particularly in radio.