According to Trove, Raycophone was on the corner of Booth & Trafalgar Sts., Annandale. There was a huge fire there on the 22nd Jan. 1936.

As for Annandale, I used to watch bands at the Annandale Hotel many years ago. Is the pub still there?

I used to watch bands at the Annandale Hotel many years ago. Is the pub still there?

Yep, and it's still a spot to see live bands.

http://www.annandalehotel.com/.

There seemed to be a lot of fires at Sydney's radio factories. Though it is a fact that fire safety equipment was nothing like it is today.

Raycophone was at No. 62, which is now a large block of flats. Interestingly, Raycophone also made film projectors for picture theatres.

Update: I did some digging and found a photo of the Raycophone factory:-

http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemLarge.aspx?itemID=14301.

Like most of the radio factories of the time, it lived next to a tram line to take workers from the factory floor to the boozer for the elbow bending competition.

"Raycophone also made film projectors for picture theatres."

In 1929 Ray Allsop developed the "Raycophone", which was a sound head that could be retro-fitted to existing silent film projectors.

Quoted from Neville Williams EA Radio Pioneers: "...despite intense opposition from the major American suppliers, he (Ray Allsop) provided the sound in almost half of Australia's cinemas at a fraction of the cost of imported equipment."

I wonder if there are any surviving "Raycophone" sound heads out there?

I worked at Gladesville Hospital in the early 1990s. The joint had a fully equipped hall with a stage, backstage area, operations control room, projection room with two large projectors and a large steel cabinet containing mercury-arc rectifier. The building is long gone and much of the northern half of the hospital is now an estate comprising dozens of townhouses.

I wish there was a way that I could have saved the projectors from the wrecking ball but they were just too big. What I do remember was that the sound track resembled a barcode which light from the arc lamp shined through to a valve containing a photo-electric cell. What I don't remember was the brand of the equipment.

I can't promise anything but I may have a couple of Polaroid photos of the projectors somewhere. It is a long shot though. If I find them I will have to get them scanned somewhere - a scanner is something I no longer have since my old one only worked on Win XP.

a scanner is something I no longer have since my old one only worked on Win XP.

Scanners are cheap as chips these days. Plenty at Officeworks, etc.

I'll probably just scan them at the library, assuming I find anything useful. I don't have much call for a scanner at the moment.

I've had good success photographing old foolscap documents that don't fit in the scanner for a website I maintain.

Silly me I was mixing up Racon (an equally ephemeral filmsound Co) with Raycophone. Anyhow, here is company film from1935 inside their factory that I was trying to reformat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vIPiVFqRcY&feature=youtu.be.

"Update: I did some digging and found a photo of the Raycophone factory:-
http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemLarge.aspx?itemID=14301."

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I'm comparing above picture by Sam Hood with one on disc and wondering if one is at back of factory (with garage doors) and how 62 Booth St seems to be sloping the wrong way today?

62 Booth St seems to be sloping the wrong way today?
Having worked in print media, I can say that plenty of photographs were flipped on the horizontal axis for design purposes - no concern for geographic accuracy.

Maven

The image on the disc is of the Trafalgar Street elevation. The Booth Street elevation is more level.
None of the photos were flipped though, otherwise the writing on the walls would also face the other way.

On Streetview I can see that the grade of the street looks more levelled out though the wide-angle lenses used to capture this imagery can and often do create optical illusions. When all is considered I would say the grade of the street is pretty much the same as it was in the day.

https://www.google.com.au/maps/....

Ah, got it now.
Same little row house next door on Trafalgar St and same store building today across Booth St at corner!

Yeah, always the others that stay.

Still, not easy to see ahead - twenty years ago I would have been able to grab photos of most of the factories before they met their ultimate fate.

Reading magazines like Wireless Weekly and Radio & Hobbies makes one realise that Sydney had lots of radio factories but even more shops selling them. Pitt Street, Castlereagh Street, George Street and York Street were populated with radio shops, selling parts, kits and fully assembled radios. Some were simple showrooms and others were Aladdin's Caves.

IIRC Didn't RCS make PCB's for Admiral & PYE?

I think the T21 chassis used a PCB that was manufactured by them.