MAST FOR WIRELESS STATION

Hawera Star, Volume L, 17 May 1930, Page 9

MAST FOR WIRELESS STATION

REPLACEMENT AT WELLINGTON. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, May 18. Tt was four years ago on May 12 that the steel wireless mast on Tinak'cri Hill was blown down during a gale of unprecedented violence. Its velocity was placed bv experts at 112 miles an hour. When a photographer took a. picture of the fallen mast he was accompanied by two other men, all three having to crawl on their hands and knees to a post stump at the top of the hill, holding on to this while the photograph was taken. It was impossible to stand upright iii such a gale. The original mast, 165 feet high, was replaced by a temporary one 60 feet high, but the advance of wireless and radio telephony lias necessitated the construction of a new mast of a height at least equal to the old one. This work is now under way. An English firm has secured the contract for" its construction, and the erection is, being carried out by the Post and Telegraph Department's engineering .staff.

The. new mast will be about the same height as the original one, hut will in addition have some stays as a further precaution against the unusual wind stresses it is likely to experience. About a third of the new mast has been erected. When complete- the mast will take an important part in linking Australia and Great Britain with New Zealand by radio telephony. The original steel mast was of American manufacture.