Cook Islands

Radio Innovation for Cook Islands

IN the Cook Islands, and Raro tonga especially, the weekly “Islands Newsletter” broadcast from Radio New Zealand is listened to with considerable interest, the session frequently being conducted by the Rev. Mr. Challis, formerly of the LMS Church in Rarotonga and now of the Pacific Islanders Congregational Church in Auckland.

Cook Islanders resident in NZ some times feature on the programme.

Short-wave reception of the

station is not always good in the Cooks, and a number of people have receivers with no short-wave band.

So for the special Christmas broad cast, when many Cook Islanders in Auckland spoke to their homeland, Rarotonga Radio made arrange ments to receive the short-wave signal and to rebroadcast it on the broadcast band through the air navigational radio homing beacon station on 590 kc/s. inis beacon is, or was, used by aircraft bound for Rarotonga. But as there is now no service to Raro tonga and as in any case there are rarely night flights in the area it seems an excellent idea to make use of the beacon in this way.