Channel 1 To Be 10 Times Stronger

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30665, 3 February 1965, Page 3

Channel 1 To Be 10 Times Stronger

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, February 2. The New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation is to replace WNTV-l’s medium-powered 10-kilowatt transmitter—at present on Mount Victoria—with new equipment 10 times more powerful.

The new equipment will be sited at Mount Kau Kau—behind Khandallah. The Director-General of Broadcasting (Mr G. H. Stringer) said today the corporation’s proposals to establish the new transmitting facilities had been approved by the Minister of Broadcasting (Mr Scott).

Mr Stringer said the project would be very similar to four other development projects involving the establishment of 100 kw transmitting equipment—for AKTV-2 at Waiatarua, for the repeaters on Mount Te Aroha in the Waikato and Wharite Peak near Woodville, and for CHTV-3 on the Sugar Loaf peak near Christchurch. Cost £410,000

Mr Stringer said the Wellington project would cost more than £410,000. This figure included the cost of the transmitter equipment, mast and aerial, installation, and the construction of the building, site and access development, power, and the purchase of the land. He said the new transmitter would greatly improve WNTV-l’s reception in the outlying Wellington suburbs and towns—including Porirua. Paekakariki, Paraparaumu and Upper Hutt as well as the north of the South Island and

other places where the signal was unsatisfactory. “It will also provide a much stronger signal for retransmission further afield by the repeater units which carry WNTV-l’s programmes,” said Mr Stringer. It is expected the new transmitter will be in service by the middle of 1966.