NEW 2YA RADIO STATION

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22005, 1 February 1937, Page 17

NEW 2YA RADIO STATION

BROADCASTS FROM TITAHI BAY DIRECTOR ANSWERS CRITICS OF RECEPTION Complaints about reception in Christchurch from the newJYA radio station at Titahi Bay, Wellington, were answered by the Director of Broadcasting (Professor James Shelley) in an interview with "The Press" last evening. Professor Shelley said listeners should remember that broadcasting had to be organised for the greatest benefit of the greatest number, and in giving the service it is giving now, the new Wellington station was doing that. Professor Shelley explained that the reception in Christchurch was affected by the position of the city in relation to the new site at Titahi Bay. When 2YA was actually in Wellington, the broadcast passed along the coast of the South Island to Christchurch and was not interrupted anywhere. Now that the station had been moved to Titahi Bay, the path of the broadcast had been altered. Titahi Bay was on the west coast of the North Island, and the broadcast was interrupted on its way to Christchurch by the Kaikouras and other coastal mountains. ' Christchurch was already well served by broadcasting, Professor Shelley said, and the new station was not built to provide better reception here. There were places—Nelson and Gisborne were two of them, and there were others—where reception from the Wellington station had been very poor and these were the places that tht new 2YA had primarily to serve." The aim in broadcasting, Professor Shelley said, was to give service to all the people, and the establishment of the new station at Titahi Bay was in fulfilment of it. It was probable that other action towards this end would have to be taken in the future and among the things that would possibly be considered would be the use of relay stations. These stations could send on broadcasts to places which could not be reached by some of tne YA stations. As a hypothetical case, Professor Shelley mentioned broadcasts to the extreme south-western corner of the South Island. It might be, he said, that Invercargill would receive a broadcast which could not be picked up in these districts, but with a relay station it could be sent on without difficulty.