He was instrumental in the establishment and early success of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. During the 1920s, he was contacted by Rev John Flynn to assist in experiments which were to enable remote families access to medical treatment by using radio equipment, on the way to setting up his Australian Inland MissionAerial Medical Service. From 1926 Traeger worked for Flynn Northern Territory radio experiments and the first official flight for the service took place in 1928. Traeger returned to Adelaide and worked on a transceiver for the network, which had to be small, cheap, durable and easy to operate. He found that a person could drive the generator using bicycle pedals, and he built his transceiver into a box. His famous "pedal wireless" was a pedal-operated generator which provided power for a transceiver. He divided his time between his workshop and the outback, where he also taught radio operating and Morse code. The first pedal sets were introduced in Queensland in 1929, which had an immediate impact on the isolation felt by people living in remote places. In 1933 Traeger invented a typewriter Morse keyboard as an accessory to the pedal sets, widely used before the invention of telephony. Over time, emergency call systems linked country-dwellers with hospitals, and sets were used by the School of the Air, doctors, ambulances, councils, taxis, airlines and ships. His first workshop was in the eastern suburb of Kensington Gardens, in 1937 moving to a larger premises at 11 Dudley Road, Marryatville, where it continued to function until his death in 1980. Traeger's invention, along with the ideas and drive of educator Adelaide Miethke, were pivotal in the development of the School of the Air. He made subsequent refinements to this system: an alphanumeric keyboard was developed which enabled unskilled operators to type their message in plain language, and later developed a voice-capable transceiver. He was assisted by his younger brother, Johann Gustav Traeger, and his father, Johann Hermann Traeger. The Traeger Transceivers company was founded, and radios were exported to a number of countries: in 1962 pedal sets were sold to Nigeria; in 1970 an educational radio network was sold to Canada. Traeger continued inventing: he designed a turbine-driven car and used solar power to convert salt water to fresh water.
Family and later life
He married Olga Emilie Schodde on 11 November 1937, who died in 1948, after the couple had two daughters. On 2 August 1956 he married a young widow, Joyce Edna Mibus, née Traeger, with whom he had a son and another two daughters. He died on 31 July 1980 in the eastern suburb of Rosslyn Park and was buried in Centennial Park Cemetery.
Honours and legacy
Traeger was awarded an OBE in 1944. At the Traeger Parksports field in Alice Springs, a plaque and the Royal Flying Doctor Service aeroplane commemorate him. The electoral district of Traeger was named after him in recognition of the significant contribution he made to people living in remote and rural areas in Queensland. A plaque marks the site of the Traeger workshop at 11 Dudley Road, Marryatville, commissioned by the Kensington & Norwood Historical Society in 1998. In 1999, the Wakefield Regional Council in South Australia commissioned a sundial and plaque to be placed at the southern entrance to Balaklava. Funding for the project came from the History Trust of South Australia, Wireless Institute of Australia, the 4WD enthusiasts' associations and the Council. The memorial was unveiled on Australia Day, with his widow Joyce Traeger and other family members in attendance. In 1999, the model of the transceiver known the "Traeger Scout" was still in production, with little change to its design except for the colour of the case since the first model produced. Following the closure of Traeger Transceivers, the model was continued as the "Tracker Scout", made in Adelaide by Tracker Communications; after they closed, Scout Communications in Brisbane continued manufacture.
