TV link from north cut
South Island television viewers missed the direct link with Montreal for the opening of the Olympic Games yesterday after the microwave station at the Blue Duck, near Kaikoura, suffered a power failure. The station’s diesel generator broke down on Saturday and the link was powered by batteries. These soon ran down, and TV2 lost its link to the North Island at 4.15 p.m. TVI lost its link shortly after 7 p.m. A maintenance team tried to reach the microwave station on Saturday, but was foiled by the heavy snotvfall. An attempt was first made in a tracked vehicle but this could not get through the snow. An attempt was made to clear the road with a bulldozer to allow a LandRover to pass. Progress was too slow to reach the station before dark and the attempt was abandoned. Soon after dark, with the batteries spent and the link cut, the South Island had to make do with local programmes. This meant that the scheduled 7 a.m. direct telecast of the opening ceremony at the Olympic Games could not be watched in the South Island. Yesterday morning a diesel mechanic and a technician finally reached the microwave station in a helicopter. They had the generator working in minutes, but the episode was far from over. A gust of wind caught the helicopter when it was parked by the station, with no-one on board, and flipped it over.
The helicopter crashed down the hillside and was badly damaged. This left the repair team and pilot stranded at the station while another helicopter was flown there from Dunedin. It lifted the wreckage of the first helicopter off the mountain and brought down the repair team. Transmission was restored yesterday morning, but not in time for the Olympic opening ceremony, which was recorded and screened in the early afternoon. The commentary on the opening was marred by a 50-minute loss' of sound because of a technical fault outside New Zealand. The TVI public relations officer, Mr C. Martin, said the reasons for the blackout were not yet known.
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Press, 19 July 1976, Page 1
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349TV link from north cut Press, 19 July 1976, Page 1
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