Cook Island update

Radio Cook Island QSL (Gayle Van Horn Collection)

Back three years ago, we presented a series of topics here in Wavescan on the radio scene in the South Pacific Cook Islands.  OK, now fast forward to the current era, and we find that the two latest editions of the New Zealand DX Times provide us with an update on the current radio scene in the Cook Islands, and that is what we present here in Wavescan today.  This interesting information is also available on the Cook Islands website.

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)

Radio New Zealand using DRM to Feed Pacific Relay Stations

DRM signals decoded, transmitted locally on FM to individual listeners

By James Careless


RANGITAIKI, New Zealand — Radio New Zealand Pacific, the official international arm of Radio New Zealand, is using Digital Radio Mondiale digital radio transmission/reception equipment to feed studio-quality audio to some of its 20 relay stations in the Pacific Ocean region. The others use satellite feeds or web downloads.

 Aitutaki 88FM in the Cook Islands (population 2,000) is a Radio New Zealand Pacific relay stations that receives content via DRM. It does so using a Wellbrook 330 foldable loop antenna on the station’s roof. Credit: Radio New Zealand Pacific. 

The locations being served by DRM include the Cook Islands, where RNZ Pacific’s programs are rebroadcast locally in analog mode by Aitutaki 88FM, the islands’ only broadcaster. RNZ Pacific also serves Tonga, Samoa, and the Solomon Islands using DRM; among others. Previously, RNZ Pacific had fed its relays using analog AM shortwave radio, with that transmission mode’s limited audio range and interference issues.

Additional story at Radio World: https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/rnz-pacific-using-drm-to-feed-pacific-relay-stations

Throwback Thursday - Radio Cook Islands

QSL from 1983 (Gayle Van Horn QSL Collection)

Radio Cook Islands is silent on shortwave, however it was once a very sought after Pacific catch. RCI operated on 11760 kHz in English and Maori, and began their broadcast with a distinctive drum melody and "this is Radio Cook Islands Calling."

The station was originally organized in the 1970's by the government on 630 kHz AM, and continues that service today, as well as FM station, HITS 101.1. Despite power cut backs, the station is heard though out the island chain, including listener's in the northern island groups using "wires strung between coconut trees."

For awhile, Radio Cook Islands had streaming audio on their website at http://radio.co.ck but is currently inactive. Radio Cook Islands-The Voice of the Nation, Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/Radio-Cook-Islands-The-Voice-of-the-Nation-143223219032811/

You Tube videos available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qI82Fq4Fp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRNsDzABhzc 

The Radio Scene at the World’s Largest Toothbrush Fence

According to the best available information, there are two fences in the world that are decorated with old and used toothbrushes.  One of these fences runs along a country road in the North Island of New Zealand, and it was commenced a few years ago by a New Zealander of Scottish background as a retirement prank. 
 The Toothbrush Fence in New Zealand is a metal wire fence running along a winding country road near the town of Te Pahu.  It has become a common practice for admirers to send an old toothbrush by post to the location, and the Scottish owner affixes it to his wire fence.  Many notable people have donated an old tooth brush to the project, including a recent Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark, who grew up in the town of Te Pahu.
 There is another Toothbrush Fence, and this one is located in Alofi, the small village that is the capital city of the exotic tourist location, Niue Island.  The Alofi Toothbrush Fence holds the world record as the longest.
 The Alofi national capital stretches along the inland side of the paved roadway running near the edge of Alofi Bay, on the west side of Niue Island.  This capital holds another record; it is the second smallest capital of any independent nation in the world, second only to Ngerulmud on Palau Island in the western Pacific.
 Niue Island is located in the center of all of the little corral atolls in the South Pacific, due west of the Cook Islands which were featured here in Wavescan in a mini-series of nine programs throughout this past year.  Niue is an autonomous island country linked in free association with New Zealand; its citizens are accorded the status as citizens of New Zealand; and its language is a Polynesian language similar to all of the other Polynesian languages spoken in the islands of the Pacific as well as in New Zealand itself. 
 Like so many other islands in the South Pacific, Niue is almost circular in shape, perhaps almost ovaloid, with 100 square miles of land surface, and a population of a little over a thousand.  Niue is one of the world's largest coral islands. 
 The terrain consists of steep limestone cliffs along the coast with a central plateau rising to about 100 feet above sea level.  A coral reef surrounds the island and the only major break in the reef is in the central western coast, close to the capital, Alofi.  A notable feature on the island is the number of limestone caves found close to the coast.
 The first settlers on the island were Polynesians who arrived from Samoa around 900 AD.  Another wave of settlers arrived on Niue from Tonga some 800 years later. 
 The English explorer Captain James Cook made three attempts to land on the island in 1774, but he was repelled by the inhabitants.  He named the island Savage Island, in part also because of their appearance; their teeth were colored by the red banana that grows in profusion on the island. 
 English Christian missionaries from the London Missionary Society visited the island in 1846.  The first Christian missionary to serve on the island was himself a Niuean citizen who had been trained in Samoa as a Christian pastor.
 In 1889, local chieftain leaders asked Queen Victoria in England for protection against a possible takeover from other European powers; and twelve years later the island was taken over by New Zealand.  In 1974 they gained independence, with free association with New Zealand, and all citizens of Niue are also citizens of New Zealand.
 Wireless came to Niue in 1924, when a small communication station was installed in Alofi by the New Zealander Mr. H. W. Cockerel.  The original callsign was VLK, but this was amended in 1927 due to new international wireless regulations.  We would presume that the new callsign for Niue Island Radio was ZLK.  Niue Island Radio is in use to this day, for local communication with shipping and aircraft, and also with distant New Zealand
 During the 1960s, consideration was given to the need for a local radio broadcasting station, particularly so that warnings could be given to local citizens in the event of major weather emergencies, such as approaching cyclones and ocean storms.
 A few years later on August 14, 1967, the same day incidentally that some offshore stations around the British coast closed down, a new radio broadcasting service was inaugurated under a New Zealand amateur callsign ZK2ZN, with the part time usage of a marine communication transmitter.  A 250 watt transmitter radiated 200 watts output on 550 kHz, with programming in both English and the Niuean language for a few hours each week. 
 This new broadcasting service was operated by the Community Development Office from a small temporary studio in a nearby tourist hotel.  Very few radio receivers were in use on the island at the time, so a bulk consignment was procured from Japan and these were sold to the local citizens at cost price.   
 Six years later, a new 250 watt Marconi transmitter was installed in a new building on a hill at an elevation of 100 feet, one mile distant from the studios in Alofi.  The mediumwave mast stood 250 feet tall.  At this stage, a new studio and office building was constructed for radio station ZK2ZN, now known as Radio Sunshine.   
 Sometimes, the programming from station WVUV on American Samoa was relayed off air after hours, at the end of regular local programming from ZK2ZN.  News bulletins and some special programming on shortwave from RNZI Radio New Zealand International and Radio Australia was broadcast from Radio Sunshine, with a microphone placed in front of the radio receiver.
 The radio station at Alofi on Niue Island has been noted on a total of five different channels over the 32 years of broadcasting on mediumwave, running from 1967 to 1999.  These five mediumwave channels have been: 550 620 531 837 and finally 594 kHz.
 An FM transmitter was installed in 1991, with 100 watts on 91 MHz.  In 1999, when the mediumwave service was closed, an additional 500 watt FM transmitter was installed, and this took over the 91 MHz channel.  The 100 watt unit was retuned to 102 MHz.  In addition to the government operated Radio Sunshine, there is also now another FM station in Alofi and this operates as Rock Radio.
(AWR-Wavescan/NWS 408)

Cook Islands - The Mystery of Another Missing Island

his is our final topic in the mini-series of nine feature articles in which we have presented the story of radio broadcasting in the exotic South Pacific nation of the Cook Islands.  You will remember in our opening topic on the radio scene in the Cook Islands earlier this year that we presented the story of a mystery island, a missing island.  That was the story of Tuanaki, the island with its entire population that apparently was engulfed by the Pacific waters, maybe somewhere around a century ago.
 Tuanaki was the most southerly of all of the Cook Islands; they spoke a Polynesian language almost identical to thyat of the people on other nearby islands; there was trade with nearby Mangaia Island; the island was known to European settlers who lived on other nearby islands in the South Pacific; several European sailors and whalers back in that era claimed that they spent time on Tuanaki; and some Cook Islanders  even today claim that they have at least one ancestor who was born on Tuanaki Island a hundred years ago.
 There was another island in the Cook Island cluster that apparently made a similar disappearance around a century ago, but before we investigate the known information about this another mystery island, we  present a miscellany of interesting left over radio items from the Cook Islands.

Communication Station VMR-ZKS-ZKA
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, was taken into official service.  The complete new wireless station, with both the transmitter as well as the receiver, was inaugurated on September 2, under the callsign VMR.  At this stage, it was stated that an objective of the new station was that all of the inhabited Cook Islands would be intercommunicated with wireless stations operating in Morse Code.
 The Cook Islands first 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 C&W Cable & Wireless and it was nationalized into Cook Islands Communications in 1991.  The building that housed the C&W Cable and Wireless station at Avarua was destroyed by fire during the following year (1992).  
 It seems that the original 1918 wireless building at the waterfront is still in use, though these days apparently it is a family dwelling, and it can be seen on Google Earth at 21 12 00 S & 159 48 30 W. 

Coast Watch Stations
Beginning in 1941, the New Zealand government began to install coastwatch stations on eleven of the Cook Islands.  The parent station was located on the capital city island, Rarotonga, with ten substations on other islands. 
 During the crucial days of the Pacific War, Rarotonga reported all shipping and aircraft movements, both friendly and enemy, to Suva in Fiji, and Suva reported by wireless to Wellington in New Zealand.  There was also an interlinking with the coastwatch stations established by the Australian government on other islands in the South Pacific. 
 On February 18, 1942, a disastrous hurricane struck Suvarow Atoll, making it necessary for the operator and two guardian soldiers to climb nearby trees and to cling on until the waters of the tidal surge subsided.  When the ordeal was over, they reassembled the salvageable electronic equipment and radioed for help.  
 Five months later, a relief ship arrived, carrying 6 tons of earth to replace that which had been washed away by the storm, and also coconut palms and other forms of vegetation.  They also brought equipment for the erection of a strong wooden tower 20 feet high.
 On July 26, 1944, all of the coastwatch stations in the Cook islands were closed, due to the fact that the active warfare scene had moved far to the north.  However at this stage, the coastwatch stations on both Suvarow and Nassau Islands were taken over as weather reporting stations, though the Nassau station was closed during the following year (1945).

   FM Comes to the Cook Islands
  The first FM station in the Cook Islands was an informal irregular station that was set up by Mr. Gordon Brereton around 1978 so that he could demonstrate FM reception for the benefit of customers in his duty free shop in Avarua.  Brereton constructed an FM tuner in his own radio shop, and his unofficial music service became quite popular with the local residents. 
 At the time there was no other FM station on the air anywhere in the Cook Islands and his informal, irregular and unofficial FM service apparently received tacit approval from the local authorities.  Even though it was operating at a low power, yet the signal covered most of the capital city island.
 On the first occasion that Brereton submitted an application for a regular FM license, this was denied.  However in a follow up application in November 1979, he was indeed granted an official license , and thus Radio Ikurangi was born. 
 Radio Ikurangi, which was named after one of the mountains that can be seen from the windows of the radio station, was granted a power of 500 watts with the official callsign ZK1ZD and it has always operated on 103.3 MHz.  Over a period of time, repeaters have been installed at different locations, including suburban Avarua, Mt Tekou in the center of the island, and on distant Aitutake Island. 
 In order to relay shortwave programming from other countries, such as from Radio New Zealand International and Radio Australia, Radio Ikurangi has used the famous FRG7 recdeiver, manufactured by Yaesu in Japan, as their shortwave receiver.  They also receive recordings from the BBC and from radio stations in the United States, as a form of delayed program relay.
     Adventist Radio in the Cook Islands
 It was back in July 1982 that Adventist radio programs were first broadcast from Radio Cook Islands and they were on the air twice weekly on mediumwave 630 kHz and shortwave 11760 kHz.  A few enterprising radio aficionados in the South Pacific took the opportunity to tune in to these programs for which QSL cards were issued.
 Then in the mid 1980s, the Cook Islands  along with several other Pacific and Asian locations were given preliminary consideration as a location for establishing the new shortwave service of Adventist World Radio.  However, as subsequent events have demonstrated, Guam became the location of choice.
 Give a few more years, and then the main Adventist church in the Cook Islands began to lay plans for the installation of their own local FM station.  That was in the year 2000, and six years later they obtained a license.  Just three days later, on Sunday April 23, their first test transmissions went on the  air.
 Give three more days and the new gospel radio station was officially inaugurated by Prime Minister Jim Maurai.  Station TK ANA 3 is located in the national capital Avarua, and it is heard on 98.7 MHz.  Programming is a mix of local productions and a satellite relay from Life Talk Radio in Riverside California.

Radio Cook Islands QSL (Gayle Van Horn Collection)

Radio Cook Islands QSL Cards
 During the past 60 years and more, Radio Cook Islands has issued more than half a dozen different QSL cards and generally they have been artistic representations depicting local scenes and local people.  The best known QSL card from the Cook Islands shows a man blowing a conch shell, with full QSL text details to be filled in by pen or typewriter.  In 1982, a group of international radio monitors from Australia and New Zealand printed a limited edition QSL card which they took with them on a visit to the Cook Islands.  Then in 1989, the Ontario DX Association in Canada printed 500 copies of a special QSL card for Radio Cook Islands that were sent out by boat.  
    
Another Missing Island: Victoria Island And now we come to the brief story of the other missing island in the Cook cluster.  Victoria island is, or probably was, located in the far north of the Cook Islands, even further north than Penrhyn Island.  It is reported that a group of copra cutters from other South Pacific Islands visited uninhabited Victoria Island in 1875, and they remained there in their employment for 18 months.  When they departed, the island was again uninhabited.
 During the 1880s, William Marsters claimed that he and a friend by the name of Levy joined a gang of laborers from Fiji and elsewhere who visited Victoria for the purpose of planting coconut groves on the island.  They were left on the island with sufficient food for several months.  In the meantime though, the employment company went bankrupt and the toilers on Victoria Island were forgotten. 
 By the time they were finally rescued, they had eaten everything they could find, including the coconuts that they had brought for planting.  William Marsters described Victoria as a fairly well  wooded volcanic island with a barrier reef and a lagoon.  It was some time after this episode that Marsters settled on nearby Palmerston Island where he was subsequently identified as the father of a thousand descendants. It is reported that Victoria Island had disappeared by the year 1921 when Captain Andy Thomson aboard the schooner Tagua ship went searching for it, but was unable to locate it. 

Strange Disappearance of Amelia Earhart
 In 1937, during a flight over the South Pacific the famous aviatrix Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan vanished without any apparent trace.  One unsubstantiated theory as to what happened, to them though it is seldom suggested these days, is that they landed their plane on an island and the island subsequently disappeared, in the same way as did Tuanaki and Victoria in the Cook Islands a century ago.
(AWR-Wavescan/NWS 402)

Cook Island Radio Tour...The Island of Beautiful People

This is now the eighth occasion in which we have made a visit to the picturesque Cook Islands in the exotic South Pacific.  In each of these feature presentations, we have examined the fascinating radio scene on each island, and also throughout this entire islandic nation as a whole. 
In our program today, we make a radio tour of three more of the exotic Cook Islands, one of which has been described as the Island of Beautiful People.  We begin today’s program with a quick glimpse at the radio scene on the island of Manihiki.

Manihiki Atoll, known as the Island of Black Pearls, is also the top of an underwater mountain, with a central lagoon 2½ miles across, surrounded by a string of 43 small islets.  More than a hundred underwater pearl farms are operated in the lagoon.
Back in the colonial era, there was an unsuccessful attempt on the part of the Polynesian people in

Tahiti to annex Manihiki for the French.  Over a lengthy period of more than 1½ centuries, the United States laid claim to Manihiki Island under its all-embracing Guano Island Act.  However, due to the fact that the island was already inhabited by its own resident population, the American claim was relinquished in 1980 in favor of the Cook islands administration. 
In advance of an approaching disastrous wind storm, Cyclone Martin, 400 people on the island of Manihiki were airlifted out to safety in November 1997.
A small communication radio station was installed on Manihiki in 1937, though it was significantly larger in fact than the one on Pukapuka Island.  Then, around 2009, a small downlink FM transmitter was installed, replacing a small mediumwave transmitter for the relay of programming from Radio Cook Islands on the capital city island.

It was on March 2, 1606 that the Spanish explorer Pedro Fernandes de Queirós visited Rakahanga Island.  He was the first European to set foot upon any of the islands in the Cook archipelago, and he stated that 500 people assembled on the beach to greet him.  The population these days is just 77.  The Catholic Friar Fray Martin de Munilla, voyaging with de Queirós, described this island as the Island of Beautiful People.

This island of Rakahanga in the Northern Cook Islands has a downlink FM relay station operating on 90.6 FM.  This low powered FM station replaced an earlier small mediumwave relay station, and the newer FM unit was first noted in the WRTVHB in 2009.  The island also operates a communication station on shortwave, and the Resident Agent representing the national government, is also the operator of this important communication link.

We visit next Penrhyn Atoll which is the northernmost island in the Cook Islands, and it is our final destination in today’s radio tour of the Cook Islands.  Penryhn is the largest atoll in the Cook Islands, larger than all other Cook islands combined, and it is surrounded by a 50 mile circle of fossilized coral.  The lagoon at Penrhyn Atoll is described as one of the largest in the world. 

Penrhyn Island was named on August 8, 1788, in honor of the transport ship Lady Penrhyn which was one of the 11 ships that sailed from England’s Isle of Wight to found the first European colony on the continent of Australia.  At the time of the discovery of Penrhyn Island, the Lady Penrhyn was supposed to be en route from Australia to China to take on a cargo of tea destined for sale in England, but it was considerably off course.  The word Penrhyn is a Welsh word meaning peninsula.
In 1864, it is stated that as many as 1,000 men, women and children from Penrhyn Island were transported to Peru in South America, where they were forced into manual labor in the mining and guano industries.  It is also reported that none of these Polynesian people ever returned to their homeland after Peru abolished slavery.

A small communication radio station was officially opened on Penrhyn on June 2, 1937 for communication with the New Zealand administration on the main Rarotonga Island.  Give three more years, and the first American service personnel arrived as part of the Pacific War.  The first contingent were Signal Corp personnel who arrived in December 1941 and they installed a radio station for communication with airplanes and with headquarters back in the United States.
In November 1942, Penrhyn Island was flooded with new people when 1,000 Americans arrived for the construction and support of an army and navy airfield.  During the war, an American Liberator plane crash landed on Penryhn after it was damaged during a bombing run in the Pacific.  Part of one engine is about all that is now left from this once proud airplane.  The last American forces personnel left Penrhyn on September 20, 1946.    

We find the first listing for a downlink FM relay station on Penrhyn in the WRTVHB for 1990.  This low powered slave relay station on 95.3 MHz likewise replaced a similar low powered mediumwave transmitter.

For those who are avid stamp collectors, Penrhyn Island has issued three different types of postage stamps during the past more than one century, and were printed and specifically identified with the island name as Penrhyn. 
(AWR-Wavescan/NWS 398)

A closer look at Cook Islands

More Intrigues in the Cook Islands

630 kHz 2.5 kW mediumwave at Matavera.

Continuing north on the east side of the island, I returned to the transmitter site of Radio Cook Islands.

The coordinates are as follows:
21 13 05.285 S 159 44 09.391 W
at an elevation of 12' according to my GPS on the smart phone. It's directly at the north-west corner of the Matavera school.

Again, absolutely no markings, other than "high voltage" signs in English and Cook Island Maori. Not a hint of any broadcast significance. The tower, itself, appears to be about 200' high, and has fading red/white painting. No obvious light on the top. Plenty of guy wires across the
school yard. PAL lists 2.5 kW. It doesn't get out that well even on the island. Not bad, but not super strong.

I didn't see any sign of studios, which I'm assuming are in Avarua town. This is a very poor island, so finances are always very tight here. The people, though, are absolutely very friendly, even though, they are quite difficult to understand. Heavily accented English, quite slurred, it would seem. They don't understand us very well either, so we usually have to repeat ourselves a time or two, before being understood! Towards the end of my circle journey, I drove on the mountain side of the airport to find the other antenna farm, located on the south-west side of the airport at the following

Coordinates:
21 12 26.29 S 159 49 06.09 W
21 12 23.68 S 159 49 10.88 W - AIRPORT TRAFFIC RADIO TX HOUSE

The antennae are located on a 9 hole golf course. Besides dipoles, there also was a fan array, as well as a long-wire end fed antenna. I'm assuming this is the transmission site for the airport.
(Walt Salmaniw, Rarotonga, Cook Islands, DXplorer Dec 9)

We've been around the island perhaps 20 times, and for the first time, I noticed something very interesting directly south of the 630 transmitter tower at Matavera.

I don't know how I could have missed it, except that I was probably focused entirely on the MW tower. On the road, perhaps 100 m south, there's a very large tall dipole array which spans across the road with one wooden support (a good twice as tall as the power poles) on the water side, and the other across the road. The wire is still in place with the lead in in the center between the poles and the lead in (looks like coax) coming down and now tied to a guard rail. On top of that, right on the
water line in the same vicinity are two more tall poles, same height, and parallel to the beach, but without any wires strung between them.

Clearly, they were for shortwave, and judging from the height, something very official. I started to wonder whether these, perhaps were originally for SW transmitters as well, or another receiving station at that end of the island. I would sure like to hear from others who might have more information about this. I'm hoping to go out there tomorrow. The store that we wanted to see there was closed today, so we didn't get off.

Talking with the bus driver, there's precious little that is publicly funded these days. Even the bus service (a very important essential service) is privately owned. Apart from the airport, police, and schools, I can't see much evidence of any other public service (water and power, too, I suppose).

With all this happening back in the 80s, over halve the population left the Cook Islands for greener pastures in New Zealand, Australia, the other Pacific islands, and even North America. There are two or three times the number of Cook Islanders elsewhere, than at home. I earlier mentioned the large
court house where Guy had seen the burned remains of RCI, presumably the SW transmitter(s) years ago.

Both this very large court house, and equally opulent central police station a 100 or 200 meters down the road were constructed by the Chinese. A contentious issue, it seems here. Parliament is in session until today and that's all that's heard on RCI from the late morning to later in the afternoon, and I've heard mentions of "being paid off by the Chinese", or "the honourable member will have to check with his Chinese bosses" about this or that! In any case, time is quickly drawing to a close for our time here in Rarotonga. It's been an extremely relaxing trip!
73, Walt Salmaniw, Rarotonga.
(Walter Salmaniw-BC-CAN, on tour in Pacific Cook Isl, DXplorer Dec 14)
(BCDX/WWDX Top News 1095 12/16/12)

Interviews from Radio Heritage

A major new interview about the work of the Radio Heritage Foundation can be heard as audio on demand from HCJB for the DX Partyline program of January 30 2009 at http://www.hcjb.org/ .

Host Allen Graham in the Quito studios talks with Radio Heritage Foundation chairman David Ricquish about how the Pacific wide radio heritage preservation project got started, its progress, and the importance of making such an effort to protect and preserve the stories of radio.

Since going live on line some 5 years ago, the website http://www.radioheritage.net/ has received millions of visitors, page views and hits from some 125+ countries, and has become a popular free resource for researchers, students, people in the broadcasting industry, radio listeners and enthusiasts and increasingly, genealogists.

In the same period, thousands of original items of radio memorabilia have been saved from damage or loss, hundreds of original articles and photos placed on line, some 30 major radio heritage documentaries researched and broadcast over RNZI, and much more.

Amongst the international board members that help give the Radio Heritage Foundation its unique global perspective on radio heritage issues are well known broadcasters Dr Adrian Peterson [Adventist World Radio], Jonathan Marks [previously with Radio Netherlands] and
Martin Hadlow [until recently with UNESCO].

The Radio Heritage Foundation is a registered non-profit organization connecting radio heritage and popular culture across the Pacific. Visit www.radioheritage.net to learn more about its current activities and programs, and to find out how you can get involved.

You can also support the radio heritage programs by donations, materials, radio memorabilia and ephemera, and your time and goodwill. These are challenging times financially for all heritage preservation projects, and your donation will help save our Pacific radio heritage for future generations.

Radio Heritage Foundation, PO Box 14339, Wellington 6241, New Zealand. Visit us today at http://www.radioheritage.net/ , listen to this latest interview on HCJB at www.hcjb.org/media/dx_partyline/dxpl_audio_files.html [January 30 2009], and listen to our latest documentaries on RNZI at http://www.rnzi.com/ audio on demand Mailbox programs of January 25 and February 8 2009

Cook Islands
A new Radio Heritage Foundation documentary exploring the history of radio in the Cook Islands can be heard as audio on demand from RNZI for the Mailbox program of February 8 2009 at http://www.rnzi.com/ .

This special documentary covers early broadcasting in the 1940's and 50's right through until today, looks at the difficulties involved with providing radio service to 2.2 million square kilometers of the South Pacific from a population base of less than 20,000, and is accompanied by traditional Cook Islands music.

You'll learn about the new outer island radio network, hear a rare station ID from TK3ANA, excerpts from Radio Cook Islands, Matariki FM and Radio Ikurangi KCFM including station IDs, jingles, local adverts and music, and other program highlights.

This is a rare glimpse into what radio on Rarotonga really sounds like, and you'll also enjoy visiting www.radioheritage.net to read the article 'ZK1ZA Cook Islands' which tells the story of early radio from these islands in the South Pacific.

'Cook Islands Radio' is part of an ongoing series of radio heritage documentaries covering the islands of the Pacific, often featuring exclusive audio recorded locally and drawing heavily on private radio archives to which the Radio Heritage Foundation now increasingly has
access.

The Radio Heritage Foundation is a registered non-profit organization connecting radio heritage and popular culture across the Pacific. Visit www.radioheritage.net to see hundreds of articles, photos and much more, including the popular Pacific Asian Log Radio Guides.

You can support the radio heritage programs of the Radio Heritage Foundation by donations, materials, radio memorabilia and ephemera, and your time and goodwill. These are challenging times financially for all heritage preservation projects, and your donation will help save our Pacific radio heritage for future generations.

Radio Heritage Foundation, PO Box 14339, Wellington 6241, New Zealand. Visit us at www.radioheritage.net and listen to us on RNZI at http://www.rnzi.com/ .
(Dario Monfeiri/playdx2003)