CONTROL OF RADIO

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3208, 26 July 1932, Page 5

CONTROL OF RADIO

PROTECTING REVENUE OF TELEGRAPH DEPT.

NEW REGULATIONS. Regulations publish in last week's Gazette in connection with the control of radio broadcasting are almost entirely a consolidation of those issued by the Post and Telegraph Department in 1925. To meet the developments since then in radio matters, and to bring radio regulations in New Zealand into conformity with the international telegraph regulations, a few amending clauses have been included. With one or wo exceptions, however, these are of a technical character, and of little, if any, interest to the general public. It is laid down that no radio station shall be used in any way to compete with Government communication services, and shall not transmit or receive radio communication, the transmission or reception of which is calculated, in the judgment of the Minister, to cause loss of revenue to the Post and Telegraph Department. Messages of warning, however, having for their object the preservation of human life, the protection of property, the detection of crime, may be transmitted without reference to the Minister. This regulation is followed up by a clause restricting newspapers in the publication of news received per medium of radio. Except with the permission of the Minister, no person shall commit to writing for the purpose of publication in a newspaper any matter transmitted from any radio station. LICENSED BY MINISTER. The only new section in the regulations i*elates to the control of private commercial stations. The Minister is authorised to issue licenses for the establishment of private commercial stations on land for the exchange of correspondence with certain other stations (fixed or mobile), which shall be named in the license. Such stations may be licensed either for general public correspondence or for the private correspondence of the owner, provided that the exchange of general public correspondence with mobile stations is not permitted.

Private commercial stations are to be divided in three classes, these to be determined by the Minister. The classification and fees for the various classes as follows:—Class I station, first-class radio telegraph operators certificate, £lO 10s; Class II station, second-class radio telegraph operator's certificate £5 ss; Class 111 station, (a) using telegraphy, third-class radio-telegraph operator's certificate, and (b) using telephonv, a radio telephone operator's certificate, £2 2s. LINK TO GENERAL SYSTEM.

Private commercial stations authorised to engage in the service of public correspondence must be connected with the general communication system. The requirements of this section may, at the Minister's discretion, be deemed to be fulfilled if one of the stations of the private radio system is provided with rapid and direct means for the exchange of traffic with a telephone or telegraph office connected with the genera! communication system of the Post and Telegraph Department. The apparatus used in any private commercial station must be capable of transmitting and receiving at a speed of at least equal to 80 words per minute.