KEEPING IN TOUCH WITH K FORCE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 649, 7 December 1951, Page 9

KEEPING IN TOUCH WITH K FORCE

cc OSH, your. voice sounds good to us chaps over here, We all gather round our radio every Saturday night at 7.30 and keep our fingers crossed for the reception. It was good last night, and the lads heard their requests." Radio New Zealand receives a steady mail of letters of thanks for their special broadcasts to K Force and that was part of one (signed "your most ardent fan") sent to Paula Moy, who conducts a Request Session on Saturday nights. Ulric Williams, who is in charge of Radio New Zealand, showed The Listener some of these letters the other day and told us something about the programmes broadcast regularly to keep the men in Korea in touch with home. Since last March Radio New Zealand has been broadcasting a News Bulletin to Korea, and Sporting Roundup is almost as old. But even before these began, letters told of the eagerness with which normal shortwave broadcasts from New Zealand were listened to. One boy said that they were "as good or better than a letter from the people from home." And soon after the News Bulletin began word came that the boys wouldn’t miss it even if they had to stay on the guns, for all extensions had been wired to the gun positions. The News Bulletin of 10 to 15 minutes is broadcast every night except Sunday at 10.30 p.m. N.Z. time. On Friday nights it is followed now by a survey of sporting attractions throughout the country. This is conducted by Pat Earnshaw, who is responsible also for a 15-minute Sporting Roundup at 9,30 p.m. on Saturdays-results of senior club games from the four main centres and of other important sporting events, including races. "You should have heard the boys when they heard Waikato beat Auckland for the Ranfurly Shield," said one letter of this session. "They are still talking about it." The same letter commented that the boys seemed to be enjoying the dance band session from the

Radio Theatre, Auckland, which from time to time is recorded from 1YD’s Saturday night broadcasts and used on shortwave. But when it comes to sport there’s always something more that New Zealanders would like to hear. "We have one request," one of the boys wrote a month or two ago. "Could you read us the acceptances on two races of a meeting, preferably the double, and please a bit more slowly so that we can write them down." And later: "I can’t tell you how much we over here have appreciated your gesture last. night in reading the double field out. The reception was excellent, and now all us race-

minded gunners have a slight dash of home today, an interest in the Wellington meeting." The sporting flavour of transmissions to Korea is maintained during the week by Jack Lamason. On Monday’s at 9.15 p.m. he is heard in a commentary on current sport. To make sure this is heard in Korea a recording is posted next day to the British Commonwealth Forces Radio in Japan and generally reaches them by the end of the week. The station has also sent quarter-hour and half-hour NZBS_ musical programmes. But eager as New Zealanders abroad are to know what is happening at home in the field of sport, no programme has been more popular with K Force than Paula Moy’s Request Session, which, for about two months, has been following Sporting Roundup on Saturday nights. Most recent letters have included requests, and there is warm praise for the

way Paula conducts the session. She has even been asked if she is married. The most recent letter received suggested that there would be enough requests for a session longer than the quarterhour now broadcast, and added: ""There’s no doubt that such programmes are very good for the morale of the troops." Reception in Korea seems to vary considerably, for the original shortwave installations here were, after all, never intended for transmission to the’ Far East. Apart from that, weather and the seasons affect reception, and there is interference at times from stronger Stations in the area. Receivers being used in Korea also vary,,: but 162 Battery, from which the largest number of letters comes, seems especially well provided for. The letters indicate, too, that there is some circulation of radio news to those whose reception is inferior or whose work prevents their listening. For the men of K Force aren’t just sitting at the radio. They’re fighting a war, and the sound of the guns comes through in many of their letters home.