Leaders miss out on station honours

Press, 2 June 1986, Page 4

Leaders miss out on station honours

Three world figures almost opened the first FM broadcast by Radio 3ZM on Saturday — unfortunately, the Queen and Presidents Mitterand and Reagan did not answer their telephones. Frustrated at getting no reply to their calls but determined to have somebody auspicious say the first few words, the award-winning 3ZM “morning team” announcers, Ken Ellis and James Daniels, asked a “lucky” thirteenth caller to do the honours.

Champagne corks, clinking glasses, and speeches duly heard throuugh both speakers, Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven” began to blast out and Stereo Hitradio ZM-FM 91.3 was under way.

FM (frequency modulation) gives a clearer

sound, with no static, and allows a stereo broadcast.

Ken Ellis yesterday described the change from AM to FM as being similar to listening to an old 78 record then listening to a stereo album.

“It’s like pulling cotton wool from your ears — it’s the difference between black and white television and colour television.

“From the announcer’s point of view, we will have to be more careful because the sound is enhanced. With AM we could bury things like rustling paper but now that’s impossible.” Listeners as far away as Lake Tekapo and Timaru had heard the broadcast perfectly, he said. “Stairway to Heaven” had been the first song played because it had polled the highest number

of votes in a listener survey, said Ellis.

The ZM-FM programme director, Mr Eriks Celmins, said the opening of the FM transmission had been very successful. “There were no problems — the technicians in particular worked very hard and did very well installing compact disc players at the last minute.”

Mr Celmins said ZM-FM had moved to using compact disc players because they gave the cleaner sound necessary for FM broadcasts. "FM as a medium will show any noise.” 3ZM will broadcast in both AM and FM for the next three months. After the transition period the AM transmitter will be switched off. While the first ZM-FM transmission may have

gone without hitches, the first FM station in Christchurch, Radio UFM, is not having the same luck. The programme director for Radio U, Mr Paul Collett, said that during 3ZM’s AM-FM test transmissions, some problems had occurred with broadcasts overlapping. Many people had called the station to complain that they were getting two signals coming through at the same time. Radio U broadcasts at 90.5 mHz while ZM-FM is at 91.3 mHz. Radio U started broadcasting in FM on February 28.

Mr Collett said the problem was probably caused by a badly tuned transmitter. He had not heard whether Radio U had had similar problems since the AM-FM transmission started at 10 a.m. on Saturday.