RADIO IN SOUTH PACIFIC

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXV, Issue 12390, 30 July 1937, Page 4

RADIO IN SOUTH PACIFIC

GROWTH OF NEW ZEALAND TRAFFIC The radio branch of the New Zealand Post Office has rapidly extended of recent years and this business is now of appreciable size. The three commercial stations, Auckland, Wellington and Awarua, not only deal with ship to shore traffic but they are the important links in a comprehensive chain of radio communication for the South Pacific. Wellington radio (Z.L.W.) for instance, has regular schedules for handling the business with Apia (Samoa), Rarotonga, Nukualofa (Tonga), Niue (Cook Group), Papeete and Chatham Islands. One of the most recent extensions of radio service to the Islands is the introduction of radio telegraphic money-orders between New Zealand and Rarotonga. Since 1933 the commercial radio business of New Zealand* with the Pacific Islands has increased by 42 per cent., the steady growth of this means of communication being shown by the year-to-year totals of telegrams forwarded and received: 1933 8,400 1934 8,508 1935 8,280 1936 9,134 1937 11,989 These figures show that last year’s messages had increased by 3589 compared with the total Island radio business of 1933.