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Radio Australia On-Line is one of the three largest sub-sites of the some 50 or so that comprise ABC On-Line. The ABC Internet site collectively receives around one million accesses per week and Radio Australia itself about 50 to 60 thousand. ABC News and Triple J, the other two prime sites, each receive around 100,000 accesses per week. Radio Australia first went to air in December 1939 as 'Australia Calling'. There had been international transmissions - both amateur and 'official' the so called 'Empire Broadcasts', in and out of Australia since the late 1920s but 'Australia Calling', a military initiative was as Sir Robert Menzies put it [ to enable us ] "to have our own voice."
After the war the station was renamed Radio Australia and for the next 50 or so years (along with the BBC World Service, Radio Nederlands and Deutche Welle to name but a few), has provided authoritative and reliable news and information world wide on what was then and still is, one of the most user friendly news and information dissemination processes available - short wave radio.
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