Off to the Antarctic

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 948, 11 October 1957, Page 17

Off to the Antarctic

RUCE BROADHEAD (right), of Station 1YA, will have & white Christmas this year. On December 14 he will leave Wellington aboard the Endeavour to join the New Zealand Antarctic Expedition at McMurdo Sound as radio reporter for the NZBS. Rural broadcasts officer in Auckland for the past four years, Mr Broadhead was chosen from 34 applicants. When he was interviewed by The Listener in Auckland last week, Bruce Broadhead made no claim to being an expert mountaineer. But he has tramped over much of the South Island back © country, climbed in the Inland Kaikouras, at Arthur’s Pass and in the Spenser, Torlesse and Upper Rakaia ranges. He is a competent skier and has -had some experience of ice work on the southern glaciers. "IT am looking forward to this assignment," he said. "Unfortunately, by the time I arrive at McMurdo Sound the main New Zealand sledging parties will be out on the polar plateau establishing supply depots. The main depot will be at Mount Albert Markham, which is 250 miles south of Scott Base. Sir Edmund Hillary’s party will push on from there to meet Dr Vivian Fuchs’s section of the Trans-Antarctic Expedition if weather conditions and supplies permit. I may be able to see something of both parties from the light aircraft which the New Zealand Expedition operates. In any case, both parties will have radio communication with Scott Base. I hope to get some information

too on the work of the scientific parties in Antarctica who are there for the International Geophysical Year." Bruce Broadhead has compiled radio features and documentaries in many out-of-the-way places-from the more remote rural districts of New Zealand to Central Australia, Papua, Samoa, Niue and the Cook Islands-and having crewed in an ocean-going yacht, he is as accustomed to living in confined quarters as he is to finding his way about the wide, open spaces. He reported for the NZBS the yachting events at the Melbourne Olympic Games, and his programmes have been broadcast in Australia and Canada, as well as in New Zealand. Mr Broadhead will be taking with him two battery-operated portable tape recorders, which he will use in collecting his material, and he will be able to edit the programmes on two Ampex tape recorders which are already installed in the Scott Base radio room. However, there may be some difficulty in relaying the programmes back to New Zealand on the short wave transmitter at McMurdo Sound, due to bad atmospheric conditions during the surmmer months. If this is the case Mr Broadhead may have to send his tapes back in American Globemaster aircraft. Meanwhile, Bruce Broadhead is busy in Auckland getting together a long list of warm clothing and other equipment. He is the first professional broadcaster to be sent from New Zealand to the Antarctic.