Joyrad Radios And The Big Bang Theory -A Kaiapoi Connection

What follows is an adapted transcript of a talk the author gave to the Christchurch V.R.S. earlier this year.


Visitors, post earthquakes, to the small town of Kaiapoi 20 km north of Christchurch will find much of interest to them. It is the location of New Zealand's newest motor caravan park; a bustling port offers cruises down the Kaiapoi river and up the Waimakariri on a faux paddle steamer and it is the home of the oldest wooden church in the Anglican Diocese, St Bartholomew's with organ restored by our own John Dodgshun of the South Island Organ Company. But it is the house at 33 Fuller Street Kaiapoi  (see far  right hand illustration )which is the focus of our interest in this article. For it was here that one of the barely acknowledged pioneers of radio-astronomy in Australasia took a significant step forward in 1947. As you'll see in the illustration it is a fairly ordinary house, typical of many of its time about 1900 to 1910 perhaps. The bit on the roof does not look original but the place has charm.




It does have, in one room, one of those giant ceramic through- the- wall aerial lead-in fittings, appropriate really for what it was for a time, a radio factory, but for the next step in what is quite a convoluted story we must turn our attention to the North Island, to the Waikato, to Te Awamutu.

Specifically, to  the small hamlet of Mangapiko, where  the Alexander family ran a farm. They had, in the early 1920s, 8 children who did their farm chores in their bare feet before going to school in Te Awamutu.



One of their sons ,Norman did well at  school and eventually went to Hamilton Boys High  and then to Auckland University to graduate in 1927 with a BSC Honours degree in physics. He won a 2-year scholarship to Trinity College Cambridge and went there to study at the Cavendish Laboratory studying under his compatriot - Ernest Rutherford. Norman Alexander then went on to work on his PhD at Cambridge being awarded his doctorate in 1934 in Physics.
While at Cambridge, Alexander met and married in 1935, an English girl named Elizabeth Caldwell. She also had a PhD in geology and physics.



Now married, they went ,as English married couples did in the 1930's," out east " for him to take up  the Chair of Physics at Raffles College in Singapore.
Elizabeth Alexander was no stay-at-home wife in Singapore.She worked on radar research at the British Singapore naval base.The 1930s had seen huge progress in both radio direction and ranging understanding   ,  and in equipment , so Elizabeth had been kept busy , and by 1941 had three children as well. Future developments were to show  just how remarkable she was.



With the coming of war, international tensions had increased. The British had fortified Singapore expecting an attack from the sea. So the Japanese overland invasion through Malaya and subsequently Singapore caught everyone by surprise. Norman Alexander was imprisoned by the Japanese in the notoriously harsh Changi Prison. Elizabeth and her three children escaped by ship to Wellington where eventually word made it in New Zealand that her husband had died in Changi.



Not for her the donning of widow’s weeds though , and focus on children. She opted to ‘do her bit’ and once in Wellington she took up a position as head of the Operational Research Section of the Radio Development Laboratory - part of what is now the DSIR. (See left hand illustration) She was working on radar research again, with  her particular interest being in “anomalous propagation” of radar signals - not those generated by the radar transmitter itself but apparently random radar signals (anomalous propagation).



Again, as you’ll probably know, New Zealand and Australia had set up  by now , a chain of seaward looking radar stations around the coasts, as the threat of Japanese invasion seemed to increase.



There were stations at Whangaroa, Piha, North Cape, Maunganui and also ,and importantly, Norfolk Island.



In March 1945 the station on Mount Bates on Norfolk Island reported a big increase in radio noise on 200mhz for half an hour around sunrise and sunset. This manifested itself as “grass” apparently on the radar screen - as “noise” - as anomalous propagation. Who was the commanding officer at this RNZAF radar station? One Les Hepburn, whom some of you will know as the proprietor of the Christchurch  radio shop ‘Tricity House’ in the 1960s. This anomalous propagation and its timing were duly reported to Elizabeth Alexander in Wellington .What extraordinary coincidence, what great good luck! She was interested in radar! She had a particular interest in anomalous propagation (AP). She had received  an interesting report of AP from Norfolk Island and she was in a position, as head of the Operational Research Section, to do something about it, to investigate.
She teed up observations to be undertaken at all coastal radar stations at the same time, looking for this anomalous propagation. There seemed to be similar results ie " grass " on the screens of virtually all coastal radar stations at the same time. At Whangaroa we were told that the CO put a micromilliameter in the system between the receiver output and the diode limiter, I presume like an AVC signal, and got significant results. At one point the needle was hard up against the stop - we are told.



Dr Alexander, realising she was on to something, called this phenomenon the “Norfolk Island Effect”. Eventually with other research postwar, it has come to be realised that the Norfolk Island Effect was actually caused by the fact that the signals the coastal radar stations were receiving were coming from the sun  - that our star was a source of both light waves and radio waves. And, if our star gave off radio waves, a reasonable expectation was that stars  in  other galaxies might do so too. Why around sunrise and sunset? The mattress spring aerials in use at the coastal stations could not, because of the way they were mounted, track the sun across the sky.

But here was the start for radio astronomy in the Pacific region. Other researchers in the late 1930s had begun to suspect the likelihood of this phenomenon,which was to lead, given things like Doppler Shift, if my understanding is correct, to the Big Bang Theory. At the Piha station, someone hooked up a Yagi antenna to their radar receiver in place of the bed spring and got a correlation between sunspot activity and solar radio noise.





By now the war was ending. Radar stations around New Zealand were being closed down.



Elizabeth was rejoined by her husband - yes he was alive  , and in 1946 they returned to the UK, eventually taking up academic positions in Nigeria. Being the scrupulous scientist she was, though, she wrote up her results before she left and they were published- not in a prestigious publication like “Nature” or “Scientific American” but here at home in a magazine some of you may recognise -  the first issue of this magazine  “Radio and Electronics” , a worthwhile if rather a short-lived publication with no international profile. Her article was entitled simply “The Sun's Radio Energy”. She left New Zealand for Nigeria soon after and apparently took no further interest in radar. (See middle illustrations)






We turn back now from Nigeria in the 1950s to Kaiapoi.

To get back to Kaiapoi we must go first though to  Oswestry in the UK in 1886. Robert Francis Joyce was born there in 1886, one of two sons to a family of brewers. R.F .(his parents got the right initials as you'll see) joined his father in the brewery as a laboratory assistant. But in 1908 at age 21 he emigrated to New Zealand. Living in Kelburn, Wellington and working for Staples & Co, one of Wellington's larger breweries, his diversity of interest  was soon evident as he established the British Colonial Stamp Club in 1914.
More importantly for us we find he was President, again in 1914, of the New Zealand Amateur Wireless Association.

But in 1917, on his call up papers for service in World War 1 ,he still listed his occupation as an ‘analytical chemist’. He spent 2 1/2 years in France, was wounded and returned to New Zealand in 1919, this time to Christchurch to work for the White Star Brewery , offices in Christchurch - brewery in Kaiapoi. By 1922, he is listed in the telephone book as a resident of Fuller Street Kaiapoi.

He began to be involved in local affairs. He became chairman of the Waimakariri Harbour Board and he served two terms on the Kaiapoi Borough Council. He also became involved for a short time, in the Sea Scouts at Kaiapoi- an offshoot of The Boy Scouts.
His tenure as Sea Scout leader was short. He apparently led the entire Kaiapoi troop in an open rowboat out over the Waimakariri bar , to the horror of the parents involved.
The most recent shipwreck on this notoriously dangerous bar was the ill-fated “Tuhoe” in 2015.
The sobriquet “Skipper” , though , was bestowed upon him at this time and he was known for the rest of his life in Kaiapoi as “Skipper Frank”. 
His interest in radio was undiminished however and so in 1926 he established the Kaiapoi branch of a company called “Broadcast Reception Limited” which morphed by 1927 into “Joyce Radio Service” at 33 Fuller Street, Kaiapoi. He now listed his occupation as radio mechanic and so we find an ad in " The Press " 24 March 1928



RF Joyce,  radio engineer, offering



Shortwave set 5 pounds


1 valve amplifier with speaker 3 pounds 10 shillings


2 valve set complete 8 pound


Reflex 14 pound


Bremner-Tully 45 pound


5 valve Gilfillan 28 pound.





Eventually he had two employees at 33 Fuller Street servicing radios and apparently building radios - Joyrad Radios. I've spoken to two people who know of Joyrad Radios. One is Murray Clark of  Christchurch V.R.S. the other  Paul Croucher who has lived all his life in Kaiapoi. Paul remembers his grand mother owning a Joyrad radio but has no recollection of how, if it all, it was branded  "Joyrad." He does remember it being on legs. Paul thinks it was a bespoke radio especially built for his grand mother.A colleague in the ChCh V.R.S. recalls his late father buying radio parts from Skipper Frank in Kaiapoi around thus time.



So, we find our R.F Joyce, then, in 1945 a man of many and diverse talents. He was a keen stamp collector. He had established his residence at Number 33 as the “Neptune Observatory” and collected and forwarded weather data for Kaiapoi to the forerunner of NIWA. He was a keen yachtsman and the  Kaiapoi harbourmaster, and a radio service man and radio manufacturer.( See illustration second from left)

What we haven't touched on  are his two other key interests: he was a keen amateur astronomer and he was an  astronomical photographer. He was listed as President of the Christchurch Astronomical Society in 1949. I believe that is the reason for the little roof extension to Number 33 - stargazing. Locals believe this is where he kept his telescopes to look at the stars.



Let's turn our attention back to that article in the first issue of “Radio and Electronics” in 1946 written by Elizabeth Alexander before she left for Nigeria. In the conclusion of her article “The Sun's Radio Energy” she wrote “In observations of this type amateurs can play an important part. Anyone who cares to build an ultra shortwave receiver can be fairly sure of collecting useful information.”



And so we find our R.F. Joyce ,  “Skipper Frank "at 33 Fuller Street Kaiapoi, Radio Mechanic and Amateur Astronomer in 1946 in possession of a war surplus radar set pointing it at the sun. He had constructed a corner reflector that could track the sun. We do not know for sure if he had read Dr Alexander's article in “Radio and Electronics” but it is a reasonable guess that he might have. This may have provided the spur for him to pursue this new direction.  By 1949 he was monitoring the sun, presumably looking for coincidence with sunspot activity on 515 MHz. Here he was, offering tangible reliable results of his research which might push forward the emerging science of radio astronomy. He sent his results to Ivan Thomsen at the Carter Observatory in Wellington .

Nothing happened!. A resounding silence greeted his reports . But he kept at it. In "The Press" 13 May 1959 he is reported, at the age of 73, as having an “aluminium sheet reflector which will trap sunspot signals for the aerial of his 12-valve receiver”.


He died in 1961 and bequeathed his entire estate, including his books, to the Christchurch Astronomical Society to buy the land and build the observatory named appropriately  "RF Joyce Memorial Observatory", presently at West Melton. It cost 1800 pounds  and its members are still to this day very active.

What sparked this interest for me in Joyrad radios? At Bells Auction in Kaiapoi, I came across  a  set  which at  first I dismissed  as just another Columbus in bad condition. But closer examination showed a red transfer on the back of the chassis bearing the inscription "Joyce Radio Service". I did not know if this was an actual mass-produced Joyrad, a bespoke Joyrad, or simply one he’d serviced and put his transfer on. But, at a  recent meeting of the Christchurch VRS Murray Clark, who had serviced another Joyrad radio previously, confirmed that it was a “mass produced” Joyrad, bearing similar classy features of chassis construction and  green (!) IF transformers. It also sported a  beautifully  turned wooden dial drum.No tacky make-do paint tin lid here! It has an “Inductances Ltd” dial glass, a Polar tuning condenser, quite a substantial aluminium chassis and interestingly, no ARTS& P sticker. Valves are s series octal.

At the most recent conference in Auckland of the NZ Astronomical Society in June this year, R.F. Joyce was the subject of a poster presentation convened by Dr Wayne Orchiston. This is perhaps an appropriate recognition for the work this man did and his vision for the science of radio-astronomy. And, coincidentally, for his part in the history of radio manufacture in New Zealand.

If any readers have any further information on Joyrad radios or corrections to this thread please contact the writer on (03) 3272421 or email amanda.david00@icloud.com



I am indebted to, and have drawn heavily on the work of Dr Wayne  Orchiston , of Alan Tunnicliffe as well as information in the Kaiapoi Museum, Papers Past and personal conversation with Neill Price and Paul Croucher for this article.The illustrations come from articles by Alan Tunnicliffe and Dr. Wayne Orchiston,Steve Dunford ,who has other photos of Joyrad radios , and the house photo is by the author. Special thanks to Lauren Molhoek (typing )  and Paul Munnerley (illustrations).