I am afraid printed circuit boards are a technology just about finished.
I made double sided boards for stuff back in the 90's and that was the height of technology of that era with hole mount components.

Next along we had surface mount parts take over, with designs still made of discrete LSI chips, still mounted on a PCB.
That was where I and Bob would just about finish

A PCB buisness in Australia would rely on volume from manufacturing concerns and expected to work on film layers with inbuilt components, a different technology that would be out of reach.
The only traditional PCB work would be your hobby "SC" stuff, no volume and customers expect you to have stock of every thing!
Not going to work unless you are as mad as a one legged duck!

Fred.

SC afaik use LD Electronics at Avalon. I've used them for a while now, always helpful. Compare well with China on price and delivery.

In regards to the RCS Ivy St Darlington address it would appear that RCS was on the corner of Ivy St & Darlington Rd.

This part of Darlington Rd & Ivy St no longer exists. It has been swallowed up by the University of Sydney and would of been around where the Seymour Centre is now situated.

As above, the SMH coverage of the fire (Saturday 25 June 1938) reports that the building stood on the corner of Shepherd and Ivy streets.

What's the source of the reference to Darlington Rd?

Yes, you are right. I got 21 & 24 mixed up. Ivy St ran though Shepherd St and ended at Darlington Rd.

This would of meant RCS radio was on the north side of Ivy St & the west side of Shepherd St (now University of Sydney territory). 21 Ivy St was in the block bounded by Ivy, Shepherd, Rose & Cleveland Sts.

The 21 Ivy St with the terrace house was part of Redfern in the 1930's.

Source: Sands Sydney Directories & various historic maps.

RCS Radio was indeed at 12 City Rd (Chippendale) from 1932 to 1934/35. The company was registered 28/7/1932.

As to the Ivy St (Darlington) address, it is variously shown as number 21 or 26. Early RCS documents & Mingay's trade annuals for 1935 & 1936 show number 21. The Sydney telephone directories for May 1935 to May 1938 & the 1937 Mingay trade annual show number 26.

Still not sure exactly sure where 21 or 26 Ivy St was located. The street numbers in Ivy St don't follow normal conventions & are all over the place. But the location is quite possibly where GTC originally pointed out, & that is on the south east corner of Ivy & Shepherd Sts.

The Sands Sydney Directories are a wee bit early for a mention of RCS in Darlington. The directory was used as a topographical reference to try and pinpoint the location.

Coming in a bit late here, but thanks to Fred for the fond memories of RCS Radio and Bob Barnes.

I went to high school just up the the road from RCS, so I was lucky to spend two weeks of work experience in 1986 with Bob. I learnt the entire process of PCB manufacture, and have fond memories guillotining the blank copper boards, screen printing the artwork, etching, drilling, and then solder masking the boards. I recall staying back one night to help finish a commercial customer's order of 30 boards to carry Reuters news feeds to buildings in the CBD, only to find the next morning that the design had changed and the boards needed to be remade.

Bob spent most of his free time at the factory. I think he came in before 9am and was there until late (sometimes until midnight), 6 or 7 days a week. I recall the wall of ten TV's in the office, the Valiants (which were green Ranger Wagons during my time there), and also the huge database of PCBs, running on two or three TRS-80's at reception. These were connected to black & white 30cm TVs, and were mounted on a shelf behind a huge sheet of tinted green perspex, giving the illusion of an expensive computer setup.

The claim that Bob stocked all of the boards from every EA, ETI, and AEM (and later Silicon Chip) I can validate because I saw first hand the vast amounts of stock that he carried. If an order came in for a board, and only 1 or 2 remained, he would make a note and another 5 or 10 would be remade within the next week when there was no commercial board work to be done. Bob also had boxes and boxes of old radio parts (I assume acquired when he purchased RCS Radio) and I recall one day he let a customer come into the factory section and spend an hour or so rummaging through the stock in search of a particular part or parts.

During my two weeks there in '86, everything was still done manually. I don't think Protel (PCB design software) was around until the early 90's. Bob had purchased two computer controlled drilling / milling machines at auction for cheap, one of these was a huge quad machine on a heavy slate base, but I never got to see these up and running.

Bob passed away in 2011, and unfortunately I think a lot of the PCB stock was sent to landfill when the business closed a couple of years later.

Hi Austfox, thanks for the memories there.
And the photo.
Indeed, there was room back then for "characters" in buisness and Bob was character plus!
A bit of a shock to some people, but really just a guy who GOT THINGS DONE.
I came from the same CAN DO era where red tape was minimal, no OH&S and you just DID IT.
I do not think the same thing exists now.

Cheers, Fred.