Celebrating 40 Years of Recorder Manufacturing

In September 1970, Dr Stan Baker stepped off a plane at Mascot Airport after three years of working in the magnetic recoding industry in the UK.  His aim was to start a company in Australia in the area of recording. He had no office, no customers and no money – only an entrepreneurial itch to start a business in an area he was passionate about.  Thus Electrodata emerged and has been in the business of   designing and building voice logging and instrumentation recorders for over 40 years, a remarkable feat given the massive changes in recording technology over the decades.  

The company’s first product was a modified consumer tape recorder that could record heat beats and other low frequency waveforms for medical researchers at USYD.  In 1975 and in response to a requirement from the then Department of Aviation, Electrodata produced its first voice logging recorders that were subsequently deployed Airports throughout the country.  Other orders followed and by 1980, the company had moved to building reel-to-reel voice logging recorders exclusively.  The liberalisation of currency exchange rates around the world helped propel growth during the 80’s.  At the end of this decade, Electrodata was manufacturing arguably the best designed analogue voice logging recorders in the world.

Alas all things come to an end, including the growth phase of banking deregulation and analogue tape technology.  The recession of 1988-92 was not helpful either and at this point in its life, Electrodata faced its darkest hour.  Its world beating tape technology was about to become extinct in favour of digital recording, the company had a hugely expensive production facility that was largely vacant and new competitors were emerging daily from companies and start-ups in the IT field.
Despite near crippling bank debts at this time, the company undertook the development of its first digital recorder, to be named the Digitrac. This proved highly successful and as the recession years eased, this product went on to sell more than 1000 units around the world.

If Electrodata spent the first 20 years of its life going from scratch to the peak of analogue design, it has spent the next 20 years climbing to the top in digital recording design.  At present the company has some of the most sophisticated and reliable recording products in the market.  Its recorders are widely used in emergency centres, call centres financial rooms and transportation hubs around Australia and the region.
Electrodata’s principal manufacturing plant is in Rydalmere, NSW with a sales and support office in Melbourne.  It continues, as it always has to invest over 50% of its outgoings in R&D.

Stan Baker with the old and new ways of recording