Rear-Admiral Byrd

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 34, 7 March 1930, Page 5

Rear-Admiral Byrd

Effort to Arrange Broadcasts R40P10 listeners throughout New Zealand will be keenly interested in the return of Rear-Admiral Byrd from Antarctica. He is now en route to Dunedin and should arrive there next week, Will he be heard on the air? The Broadcasting Company wrote to him while he was at Little America inviting him to broadcast, and for some weeks past broadcasts and rebroadcasts have been carried out between 2YA and 2XAD, Schenectady (New York), via the short-wave station, 2M, Sydney, to test the possibility of Rear-Admiral Byrd speaking to the people of America. If this project materialises, Rear-Admiral Byrd’s voice will be relayed over 500 miles of telephone line and submarine cable from Dunedin to 2YA, Wellington. The short-wave station, 2MW, Sydney, will pick up and rebroadeast to 2XAD, Schenectady, whence it will be distributed throughout U.S.A. and Canada, One can imagine the thrill which the American people will experience on hearing the voice of such a national hero as Rear-Admiral Byrd, fresh from his remarkably successful expedition to the South Pole. If this contemplated broadcast is a successful one, it will complete in a most dramatic and spectacular manner the part which radio has played in the carrying out of Rear-Admiral Byrd’s expedition. At the time of going to press there is no definite information as to whether and when Rear-Admiral Byrd will be broadcasting. When the news is available it will be duly announced and published in the daily papers.