UTS rules out scrapping historic Fairfax radio mast

A radio mast that once helped Sydney journalists report breaking news could undergo major restoration in the next two years, with the University of Technology Sydney ruling out its permanent removal.

The ageing steel structure stands atop UTS Building 10 in Jones Street, Ultimo, formerly home to Fairfax newspapers including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sun, The Sun-Herald and The Australian Financial Review.

Gavan Hutton, UTS’s head of assets and facilities management, said the university had conducted regular engineering inspections, with restoration potentially beginning within 12 months.

The work would involve removing rust, repairing corroded steelwork and repainting the mast, either on site or after dismantling sections for restoration elsewhere before returning them.

“We’re committed to maintaining it,” Hutton added.

 

During a rooftop inspection with Central News, UTS senior facilities manager Mark Hamilton pointed out extensive corrosion on the mast’s steel framework.

“Over the next 18 months, we’re going to address that,” Hamilton said.

However, no final refurbishment date or approved budget has been confirmed.

Sources told Central News a previous costing of the project, put the restoration at $1.3 million.

The mast no longer serves its original newspaper radio communications function, although its aviation warning lights remain operational.

Unlike Sydney’s AWA Building and Tower on York Street, which is listed on the NSW State Heritage Register, and despite the former Fairfax building’s historic role in Australian media, neither it nor the rooftop aerial are heritage listed.

However, parts of the building’s existing decor were preserved during a major $50 million redevelopment in 2002, including the building’s mid-century foyer and wood-lined managerial floor, replete with open fire places. Signs of the building’s former industrial nature can also be spotted on some floors, where hooks and pullies for hauling giant reels of  paper, and heavy metal cross beams, were retained in the ceilings.

On the building’s granite-clad exterior, the outline of the names of the papers printed there can still be clearly made out.

 

Behind the Fairfax archives

Documents held in the State Library of NSW’s Fairfax Media Business Archive reveal how the former newspaper headquarters operated and when its rooftop radio mast was commissioned – exactly 70 years ago tomorrow.

Correspondence examined across boxes of Fairfax records reveals the less glamorous side of running a newspaper empire, from maintenance bills and plumbing problems to fire precautions, corrosive chemicals and disputes over repair costs.

A memorandum dated October 14, 1959, described how sprinkler water from a fifth-floor fire the previous month seeped through cracks in the concrete, reaching the composing room below and threatening newspaper production.

The memorandum also referred to a separate incident involving The Land newspaper: “On this matter it may be of interest to note that last week a drunken employee of Land Newspaper Company set a number of fires on a floor which set off sprinkler heads.”

Among the correspondence were letters tracing the rooftop aerial’s development.

In April 1955, builders Stuart Bros requested technical details about the mast’s height, antenna and radio connections, and by November 1956, drawings were ready and steel was available. The builders warned a construction crane would soon be removed and urged Fairfax to make a decision.

The following day, on November 8, 1956, Fairfax managing director Rupert Henderson authorised construction.

“I am agreeable that you should proceed with this work, at a cost of £9,000,” Henderson wrote.

The amount was equivalent to approximately $370,000 in 2026 Australian dollars, adjusted for inflation.

Two decades later, correspondence dated August 24, 1976, described the 14-storey building and its radio mast as having once been a notable architectural feature before surrounding developments transformed Sydney’s skyline.

When breaking news travelled by radio

Long before mobile phones became commonplace, the rooftop mast helped connect Fairfax’s Broadway newsrooms with reporters and photographers working across Sydney.

Former The Sun journalist Christopher Holcroft recalled how the newspaper’s radio call sign, VH2AN, enabled newsroom staff to dispatch editorial cars to breaking news assignments.

Police rounds reporters also monitored emergency services broadcasts, allowing news crews to respond quickly to incidents.

Former Sydney Morning Herald journalist Rocco Fazzari remembered the scale of Fairfax’s Broadway headquarters.

“It was like a city within a city, we employed thousands,” he recalled.

 

Fazzari also remembered how a dedicated ‘radio room’ monitoring different frequencies for emergency services, including ambulances and the fire brigade, gave journalists an advantage when covering breaking news.

“Basically we eavesdropped on the police,” he added.

“Don’t forget this was way before the internet or mobile phones, and often journos would get to crime scenes as quickly as the police or even before.”

Former Fairfax employee Corrie Parsonson added that the papers’ experienced drivers were also crucial in responding to breaking news.

“There was a dedicated team of drivers whose news sense was often more sharply tuned than the young reporter in the front passenger seat,” Parsonson said.

For journalists working in the field, portable two-way radios known as “pack sets” provided a vital connection to editors and copytakers back at Broadway.

Former The Sydney Morning Herald journalist Paul Ellercamp, who began his career as a cadet in 1972, recalled carrying a portable radio over his shoulder while covering stories.

“The mobile radio was my lifeline back to the office and vice versa,” he said.

Ellercamp also recalled the loud interjections of the pack sets interrupting interviews, forcing reporters to rush outside to answer the newsroom.

“You often had to virtually shout down the microphone to ensure you were heard back at base,” he wrote.

Trevor Dallen, who spent 38 years as a photographer for The Sun, remembered radio communications reaching as far as the Blue Mountains and Wollongong. A full-time technician maintained the radio equipment at Broadway and in the newspaper’s vehicles.

“These were the years before mobile phones,” Dallen said, explaining that reporters no longer had to find a payphone to send their stories.

Not every communication problem was accidental. Dallen recounted an anecdote about a photographer imitating a failing radio signal to prolong his time drinking at the bar.

Behind such humour was the relentless pressure of newspaper deadlines.

Tim Mullins, a former sports editor of The Sun, which closed in March 1988, recalled journalists composing stories mentally and dictating them over two-way radio to copytakers.

“Everything was subject to deadlines,” Mullins wrote. “No good if you had the biggest story of the year. If it isn’t ready by the time the presses start, it doesn’t see the light of day.”

A newsroom beneath the mast

Today, the former Fairfax headquarters serves a different purpose, housing university classrooms and research facilities. Yet journalism has not entirely left the building. Level 5 is now home to Central News, UTS’s student newsroom.

Acting UTS building manager Dave Murphy, who returned temporarily from retirement after two decades at the university, described the mast as a familiar Sydney landmark.

“It’s iconic,” Murphy said, comparing it to the famous Coca-Cola sign at Kings Cross.

Murphy recalled the university considered removing the mast during construction of neighbouring Building 11 around 2013, when a large crane was already available on site.

He said architect Clive Gunton, a former UTS campus development manager, strongly advocated retaining the mast because of its landmark and heritage value.

Although the structure got a reprieve, maintaining its ageing steelwork remains costly.

Murphy said a possible restoration process would involve dismantling the mast in sections and transporting it off site to remove rust, repair damaged steelwork, and galvanise and repaint the structure before returning it and reassembling it.

Beyond corrosion, the building’s rooftop has presented other maintenance challenges. Murphy said pigeons taking over an upper-level plant room after a window was left permanently ajar, left extensive damage requiring a deep clean of much of the two-storey rooftop structure the mast sits on.

Crows have also established nests among the mast’s steel supports.

“The crows have taken ownership,” Murphy joked.

 

 

 

The mast no longer carries its original newspaper radio communications, although its red aviation warning lights remain operational. Murphy said a light sensor automatically switches them on after dark, but requires regular monitoring and maintenance.

Main image by Melanie Clarry.