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| Radio Cook Island QSL (Gayle Van Horn Collection) |
The 350 feet tall medium wave mast at the Matavera transmitter site has been in use for many years, and due to the salt water atmosphere, it has become quite rusted, particularly in the mid section. As a safety factor, it was necessary to demolish this tall radio tower.
Radio broadcasting came to the Cook Islands in 1954 under Percy Henderson, who constructed the first two low power transmitters, mediumwave and shortwave, with used equipment provided by the New Zealand Broadcasting Service. The original transmitter location was at Blackrock, on the western edge of Avarua on Rarotonga Island.
Fourteen years later (1968), a new Marconi transmitter with 10 kW on 630 kHz was installed in the grounds of the Takitumu School at Matavera, on the eastern coastline of Rarotonga Island. The older Blackrock station was then relegated to backup status. In preparation for the demolition of the radio mast, the activities of the Takitumu School were transferred off campus to a temporary location.
At midnight on Wednesday August 7, (2019), the medium wave transmitter was turned off for the last time, thus ending the usage of mediumwave in the Cook Islands, and the radio tower has since been demolished. The shortwave service came to an end more than a quarter of a century earlier, back in 1993, due to a malfunction in the transmitter itself.
A low power FM transmitter on 101 MHz had already been on the air in parallel with what was the medium wave service, thus providing radio coverage to much of the capital island, Raratonga. Portable FM receivers can tune this 101 MHz channel, though the FM radio receivers in motor vehicles imported into these islands from Japan tune only the Japanese FM Band 1, and not the standard American FM Band 2, and they don’t tune up as far as 101 MHz.
In addition, the low power FM relay stations in the southern group of the Cook Islands are currently inactive due to technical faults, though the low power FM stations in the northern group of islands are all currently on the air with a relay from Rarotonga via the internet. Work is underway to upgrade the entire FM network, and to change the operating frequency of all of the low power FM relay stations from current 88.8 MHz to the new 101 MHz.
In case of any form of nationwide emergency in the Cook Islands, such as hurricanes and tsunamis, it is currently possible to obtain rapid nationwide coverage via the internet, as well as by FM radio, and also by nationwide low power TV. However, with local shortwave and now mediumwave off the air, as well as the earlier closure of Radio Australia, it is considered that the Cook Islands really need a more adequate single source for the rapid dissemination of emergency information throughout their twelve populated islands.
It is considered that reactivation and upgrading of the old Blackrock station is unadvisable, and a current investigation is looking into the possibility of a new mediumwave station at another suitable site.
(Adrian Peterson/AWR-Wavescan 552)