Relay Arranged

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 648, 27 April 1929, Page 1

Relay Arranged

BAND MUSIC FOR AUCKLAND

Broadcast on Sunday Night

(Special to THE SUE) CHRISTCHURCH, To-day. STATION IYA will carry out an interesting relay on Sunday evening when a portion of the concert to be given by the Port Nicholson Silver Band in the Wellington Grand Opera House will be broadcast by the Auckland station from 8.30 to 9.30 p.m. The relay will be over a distance of 450 miles, the longest yet attempted in New Zealand. The previous long-distance record was for the relay from Wanganui to Wellington, a distance of 125 miles.

The purpose of Sunday evening’s relay, according to Mr. A. R. Harris, general manager of the Radio Broadcasting Company, will be to test the possibilities of long-distance relays in New Zealand. He visualises the connecting up of all the New Zealand stations in this way. The broadcasting of band concerts by IYA may be a regular feature of the Sunday evening programmes. In a similar way, 4YA, Dunedin, will occasionally relay 3YA. Christchurch, programmes, and 3YA will relay 4YA programmes in order to provide extra variety entertainment, or when the necessary local talent is not available. Mr. Harris states that, whenever possible. the company prefers to encourage the local talent, but no doubt the future will see the occasional use of long relay lines in order that the

Broadcasting Company can avail itself of talent chosen from New Zealand as a whole. It is probable that on some future occasion the whole of the four stations will be sending out a Wellington or an Auckland concert, IYA by relay from Wellington (or vice versa), 3YA by a re-broadcast of 2YA, and 4YA by relay from 3YA. The re-broadcast of 2YA by 3YA will be necessary, because there is at present no spare telephone connection between the islands, available for relaying purposes. Mr. Harris points out that, while rebroadcasts are, at times, satisfactory, they are technically unreliable owing to occasional adverse atmospheric conditions. He says that the most efficient and reliable method is by telephone connection whep such lines as are suitable, are available for rebroadcasting purposes.