Radio Broadcasts Spoiled by Local Interference

Lake County Mail, Issue 14, 27 August 1947, Page 1

Radio Broadcasts Spoiled by Local Interference

Asking that some steps he taken to remedy local radio interference, which'has, over a long period, been a source of annoyance to Queenstown residents, a petition, signed hy the majority of the townspeople and forwarded to the Minister of Broadcasting last year, resulted in an expression of the Minister’s sympathy with the petitioners in their complaint. But so far no direct cufe of the trouble, nor action to find one, has been forthcoming. Faulty Installations? Cause of the interference, according to competent authority, is to be found in some faulty installations and other devices. An indication of the mixed radio reception received in the town was provided last Wednesday, the day of the Eanfurly Shield Rugby game between Otago and Auckland at Dunedin, when, while certain quarters of the town had almost noise-free reception of the match commentary, other parts were subjected to intermittent local noise interference. P. and T. Inspections Repeated applications have been lodged with the Post and Telegraph Department, and periodical inspections

have been carried out by the department’s officers. As late as a week ago a P. and T. Department officer visited Queenstown. Equipment sulpp/lied on this occasion was, as has been the case in the past, obsolete and quite out of date for the typo of work it is required to perform, according to authoritative opinion. However, these efforts on the department’s part are appreciated in the town, where it is l considered that the local power authority may not be altogether free from blame for radio reception conditions. Power Board’s Position When the Otago Central Electric Power Board took control of the supply of power to Queenstown in 1945, a reinspection of the town’s electrical services was overdue, and that, with the complete rewiring of transmission lines, was one of the works the town was assured would be undertaken. Except that the hoard has brought in additional high tension lines and carried out certain minor overhauls in high tension work in some sections of Queenstown, however, promise of a complete overhaul has shown no signs of achieving fulfilment. Were this overhaul effected, together with a complete reinspection of commercial and residential installations — as the law compels to be made periodically—the standard of radio reception would, it is thought, be vastly improved.