The
Pacific Island nation known as the Cook Islands is made up of 15 widely
separated islands or atolls in the exotic South Pacific, with a combined area
of just 93 square miles. The
northernmost island is Penrhyn, and the southernmost is Mangaia, with 900 miles
of almost empty ocean in between.
This cluster of exotic islands lies
in the warm tropics a little south of the equator, about halfway between Hawaii
and Antarctica. Each island/atoll is the
top of an extinct volcanic mountain rising up from the ocean floor with a
surrounding coral reef. The almost
circular main island is Rarotonga, no more than seven miles across, with Avarua
as its capital and largest town.
The total resident population of all
islands is only 15,000, though four times that number, some 60,000 Cook
Islanders, now live in New Zealand, mainly in the North Island. The two official languages are English and
Cook Island Maori, which is very similar to New Zealand Maori. In addition, several different, though
generally mutually understood dialects, are spoken in the varied islands.
The Cook Islands flag shows the
British Union Jack in the canton area, with a circle of 15 white stars on a
blue background in the fly area. The
Union Jack acknowledges the country's long time association with the British
Empire, the blue background recognizes that it is a maritime nation, and the
circle of 15 white stars honors each of the main 15 island/atolls that make up
this combined nation.
The major income for the Cook
Islands is tourism, with 100,000 visitors each year, mostly from New Zealand,
though also from the United States and elsewhere; the most prolific local food
sources are fishing and tropical fruits; and the accepted currencies are the
Cook Island dollar and the New Zealand dollar.
The first inhabitants in the Cook
Islands were Polynesian peoples from Tahiti and they migrated into the islands
about 1½ thousand years ago. The first European to see the islands, was
the Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña y Neira, and he sighted Pukapuka Island
in the year 1595. Then eleven years
later, the first European ashore in the Cook Islands was the Portuguese mariner
serving Spain, Pedro Fernandes de Queirós and he visited Rakahanga
Island.
The famous English explorer Captain
James Cook named this island cluster the Hervey Islands at the time of his
first visit in 1773. However, it was the
Russians who gave them their permanent name.
A Russian map printed in the 1820s showed the Hervey Islands under the
name Cook islands, thus honoring the English mariner, and acknowledging the
English jurisdiction.
The first Christian missionaries
settled in the Cook Islands in 1821, and quite quickly the islanders accepted
this religion that was so new to them.
In 1888, the Cook Islands became a British protectorate, in 1900 the
territories were ceded to Great Britain; in 1901 the islands were incorporated into the Dominion
of New Zealand; and on August 5, 1965, the islands were granted independence
with free association with New Zealand.
The
first wireless station in the Cook Islands was installed close to the
settlement of Avarua, right on the beach front on the northernmost edge of the
island of Rarotonga. The land for this
new international communication facility was acquired in 1915, though there was
a delay in installing the equipment due to the war that was raging in
continental Europe at the time.
Early in the year 1918, work began
on the installation of the wireless station, and on April 20, a temporary
receiving station, consisting simply of an antenna and a crystal set receiver,
were taken into official service. The
complete new wireless station, transmitter and receiver, was inaugurated on
September 2, under the callsign VMR.
The Cook Islands wireless station
was modernized in the 1920s with the installation of electronic valve
equipment; and in the process of time, the callsign was amended to ZKS, with
the usage also of a subsequent callsign ZKA.
This station was developed by Cable & Wireless and it was
nationalized into Cook Islands Communications in 1991.
It seems that the original wireless
building is still in use, though these days apparently as a dwelling, and it
can be seen on Google Earth at 21
12 00 S & 159 48 30 W.
The first radio broadcasting station
in the Cook Islands was an informal and unofficial station that was
orchestrated by the well known international radioman, Alan Roycroft, the son
in an English migrant family that settled in New Zealand. During the year 1944, Alan Roycroft was
serving in radio communications with the Royal New Zealand Air Force on
Rarotonga Island.
Roycroft modified a low powered
longwave airways beacon for part time usage as a mediumwave program
broadcasting transmitter. This radio
transmitter was located in association with the airport on the northern edge of
the island and it was on the air with an irregular program schedule. We would
imagine that the radio broadcasts were compiled from a few locally produced
programs and relays from international shortwave stations that were audible on
a local shortwave receiver.
Some ten years later, the first
officially recognized experimental broadcasts on mediumwave began at Avarua on
Rarotonga; and that’s
where we pick up the story again next time.
(AWR-Wavescan/NWS 374)