NOTES and NEWS from the NORTH

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 21, 5 December 1930, Page 6

NOTES and NEWS from the NORTH

~~~by

CALL-UP

FAREWELL function was given recently at 1YA for Mr. Owen Pritchard, who has been transferred to Wellington. The 1YA staff presented him with a portable reading lamp, and he received numerous good wishes and regrets at his departure. He was heard for the last time from the local station on Saturday evening, and northern listeners will greatly miss this clever humorist, singer and violinist. His place as programme organiser at 1YA is being taken by Mr. H. C. Trim, who has held a similar position at 2YA for the past few years. Mr. Trim can be assured of a warm welcome when he arrives in the Queen City. : . : AN exceptional number of race relays will be given from 1YA during the next two or three weeks. There will be broadcasts on four days of the gallops at Bllerslie in Christmas week, and three days trotting. As usual Mr. Gordon Hutter will be at the microphone. s a "THE ceremony of opening the new Auckland railway station which was relayed from 1YA on Monday was most interesting, and the speeches came through with wonderful clarity. A

relay such as this is always welcome in the afternoon, as the daytime programmes are apt to have a certain monotony, being almost wholly made up of gramophone records. Although the records are good and varied, any little’ innovation is particularly appreciated by those w'" are in the habit of listening during daylight, and it is surprising how many sets are on between three o’clock and five, * * * [HE radio telephone service between New Zealand and Australia had a successful inauguration so far as Auckland was concerned. On November 25 one call was put through from an Auckland resjdent to a Sydney friend, and there were three calls from Sydney to Auckland. All the conversations were short, but the transmission and reception were reported to be most successful. One supposes that it is only a matter of time before we can ring up any part of the world from a street telephone box-if we put a five-pound note instead of a penny in the slot! * * A FEW months ago it was rumoured that the New Zealand Government contemplated a scheme for broadcast

instruction to the primary schools throughout the Dominion. ‘The precarious position of State finances, however, no doubt precluded serious consideration of such a proposal. A suggestion mentioned to "Call-Up" was that the various school committees could organise entertainments to purchase receiving sets and erect aerials for their schools, and the Government could organise the instructional broadeasts from the "YA" stations. A Youthful Combination To Play from LYA "THE Ponsonby Boys’ Brass Band, which is to play from 1YA on December 10, belongs to an organisation well known in many parts’ of New Zealand, for every year a full band of thirty-two players tours some part of the Dominion. The band has previously been heard from 1YA, but

only two of the thirty-two boys to be heard on Wednesday next were among those who played on the former occa-~-sion. Thus to all intents and purposes it is a new band, The band was formed fourteen years ago ‘with the idea of giving a musical training to boys whose parents could not otherwise afford it, and it was the first boys’ brass band in New Zealand or, it is believed, in Australia. Their example has since been followed in at least six other New Zealand towns. The boys are taken in at the age of nine or ten, and after three « four years’ training are placed in th "A" band. When eighteen or nineteem, they are placed in one of the senior Auckland bands or given a clearance. . Since activities commenced, two hundred bandsmen have been trained, and many of these are now in leading bands and orchestras in different parts of New Zealand and Australia. The present strength is 65 players, 30 reeruits, and two conductors. The band receives no subsidy, and all its officials are honorary. It works for what it earns, but is always willing to help a worthy cause. It plays regularly at the Public Hospital, asylums, Costley Home, and the Veterans’ Home.