N.Z. WILL SPEAK TO PACIFIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 370, 26 July 1946, Page 6

N.Z. WILL SPEAK TO PACIFIC

New Shortwave Transmitter at Titahi Bay WO shortwave transmitters, each of seven and a-half kilowatts, are installed in the 2YA transmitter building at Titahi Bay waiting for aerial systems to be erected. When the aerials go up, New Zealand will be able to go on the air with a regular shortwave broadcasting service to the South Pacific and Australia, providing a two-hour evening programme for each of four zones. It will not be a reliable service to other parts of the world, such as might present the voice of New Zealand to America or Europe, although under favourable conditions its signals will be picked up there. But it will bring owners of shortwave sets in the New Zealand dependencies in the Pacific and on the east coast of Australia into closer touch with New Zealand. It will be at least six months before the service goes on the air, because the aerial systems cannot be put up yet, but the transmitters themselves, which were originally ordered by the Post and Telegraph Department for war purposes, have been installed at Titahi Bay, and the aerial feeders actually go to the windows of the building. There is also an arrangement of sticks and wires just outside that has been used as an aerial for testing the equipment. (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) The scope of the proposed transmissions means that they will be in a sense a tryout for any shortwave broadcasting on a bigger scale, such as New Zealand might subsequently use to draw attention to its tourist attractions. Four two-hour programmes, reaching their intended listeners between 8.0 p.m. and 10.0 p.m. local time, will be sent out in four directions, starting in a north-easterly direction (Cook Islands, Ellice Islands, etc.), and sweeping westward until Australia is reached, finishing at 10.0 p.m. Australian time. This will happen over a period of about six hours New Zealand time, starting here about 5.0 or 6.0 p.m. and finishing towards midnight. The scheme resembles the BBC’s overseas services, on a smaller scale. No plans have been made yet about the type of programme to be sent out, as the broadcasts themselves are so far off, but a special programme staff will be assigned to the service, which will have a small studio in the city, and a control room of its own. It will be possible, if it is desired, to link up the shortwave service with any of the ordinary broadcast programmes emanat- ing in Wellington: Station ZLT7 is still on the air each evening for a few minutes to broadcast New Zealand news to the Pacific, a service that was begun in the first place for members of our own forces there,

but the new service will provide entertainment as well as news and _ talks. Australia is already providing shortwave services for the Pacific, including one in French ("Radio Australie’) which is received at good strength in New Zealand during the evening, while the programme is on its way to Tahiti. A full scale shortwave service from New Zealand, if it is put into operation later, will require much more powerful equipment, and an elaborate system of aerials which will need a good deal of flat land. The aerials in a shortwave station perform the same function as a searchlight reflector, confining the signal to a narrow beam. They need to be on flat land because the effective wave goes off at an angle very close to the horizontal and so the aerials need to be on the flat, away from obstructions. Although the transmitters are all ready for operation, and have actually been tested on the air, no purpose would be served by operating them now without a system of proper aerials. They would be like searchlights without reflectorsyou might as well hold up a naked electric light. The reflectors, or "beam arrays," will have to be installed by Post and Telegraph riggers when they can be spared. There will be a separate array for each sector to be served, and a complicated switching gear is being built so that they can be switched into use by remote control from the transmitter building.