Radio's bionic finger man

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 3, Issue 12, 13 August 1985, Page 23

Radio's bionic finger man

After two weeks on air, cverything at Ruapehu Radio is going well — that is apart from broadeaster/journalist, Keith Richardson 's finger! Keith severely dislocated the middle finger on his right hand whilst skiing last weekend. It was the final run of the day to the car park," he says, there wasn't much visibility and I hit a patch of ice." After falling, Mr Richardson says he looked at his glove "and I noticed it was at a strange angle. On removing my glove I found that my finger was at the same strange angle!" He was taken to the Waimarino Hospital and, "being the big sook that I ara, told the doctors that there was no way he was going to touch it until I had a local." After giving Mr Richardson a local anaesthetic, Dr Plant moved the bone back into place and put it in a very conspicious splint, which now has 'bionic finger' written on it. "It gets in the way a lot," Keith says, "I often catch it in doors and car doors." "He screams a lot," adds local news gatherer Leanne Steel. Although it slows him down slightly, Keith has been able to continue typing out his stories and broadcasting "but at the end of an airshift, it's very swollen and throbbing," he moans.

Keith Richardson says all the staff at the station have pitched in and helped since the accident, "everyone's a Jack or Jill of all trades around here." Keith has been involved in radio for 26 years and is livelier than ever on air. "I like doing lots of stupid things with lots of sound effects." As well as a broadcaster and journalist, he has appeared in many films, television programmes and commercials. He was the character of Mr Scallion, a continuing role, in the television series, 'Close to Home'and has'also appeared in both series of 'Moynihan'as Matt, a union delegate, in 'Mortimers Patch', as Wally Scarrow, in 'Jocko', 'Inside Straight', and "Country GP' as well as the films 'Goodbye Pork Pie'anda newmovie'Should 1 Be Good?' which deals with the drug scene. Recently Keith and another actor/writer began a radio production, 'Hoot Productions'. They write and produce comedy skits and other material for radio stations around the country. Keith Richardson was at Ruapehu Radio last year, as were several of the other staff. Station manager for the operation is Dave Campbell, from Wellington. He is a director of Ceefor Communications, a broadcasting

consultancy company, which also operates a short-term station at Kapiti during the summer months. This year at Ruapehu Radio an FM transmitter has been set up for the National Park area at a cost of around $10,000, Mr Campbell says. The FM frequency was set up in National Park because the AM transmission to that area was poor last year. The station has a special VHF link in the studio which is then transmitted to Waipuna, where a post office microwave station has been set up to the west of Raetihi. It then re-broadcasts to the National Park microwave station. Ruapehu Radio did not become FM in the Ohakune area as "if we did only about half of the population would be able to pick it up," says Dave Campbell. About half the homes and ten percent of cars have FM, Mr Campbell believes, so

until it becomes more popular, Ruapehu Radio in the Ohakune area will remain AM. The future of Ruapehu Radio is uncertain at present Mr Campbell says, personally he would like to see that station continue "The region deserves a local station at least three months of the year." But he says Radio New Zealand have plans to put a full-time repeater in the area which would mean 2ZW in Wanganui would broadcast clearly in the area but have no local input. So Mr Campbell says the situation will have to be looked at and discussed with Radio New Zealand Ruapehu Radio may be able to take over the repeater for the winter. But Radio New Zealand has not yet applied to get a repeater in the area so the situation is still uncertain.