 The Australians were already preparing to produce radar sets locally . Oliphant persuaded Professor Thomas Laby to release Eric Burhop and Leslie Martin from their work on optical munitions to work on radar , and they succeeded in building a cavity magnetron in their laboratory at the University of Melbourne in May 1942 . Oliphant worked with Martin on the process of moving the magnetrons for the laboratory to the production line . Over 2 @,@ 000 radar sets were produced in Australia during the war . 
