[IRCA] A visit to Radio Cook Islands

[Walter Salmaniw <canswl@xxxxxxxxx>]

Visit to Radio Cook Islands

Sunday night blew all night with quite a major storm, but little rain.
 The morning revealed a lot of debris on the ground and all the roads,
and even a fishing boat washed up on the breakwater in Avarua town.
Monday morning, we went back into town and after asking around, easily
found RCI.  It’s one block west of the town turn-around, and former
location of the SW transmitters of RCI.  On the site is, perhaps the
largest building in Avarua town, and that’s the court house…a large,
imposing brick building.  One sees absolutely no sign of the former
occupants.
     Traveling the one block west to the petrol station and turning
left, one sees a brightly coloured building, totally unmarked.
Inquiring at the front desk, I’m told that RCI is down the hall, and
to just walk in!  At the end of this hall I could see a very small
studio with a middle aged announcer at the desk.  He motioned for me
to come in.  The building houses the TV studio for the Cook Islands,
which has a single channel (8, I believe).  The announcer, with one of
those unpronounceable Cook Island Maori names, has not worked at the
station for too many years.  His shift covers 08:00 to noon, Monday to
Friday.  He wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about any of the
technical details, unfortunately, nor was there anyone present who
knew much.
     There are five employees of RCI, which is totally privately owned
these days.  They have absolutely nothing printed that they could
share with me.  He acknowledged the 88.8 MHz transmitter, at the
station, which covers only about the northern half of the island.  I
know that I could only receive it 4 or 5 km up the road towards Avarua
town.  He was also well aware of the 630 transmitter, of course.  On
air, there’s no mention of the FM relays, just 630.  The neighboring
island of Aitutaki (about a 30 minute flight north) apparently also
has a FM relay, but he seemed to indicate that none of the other
islands do, but this doesn’t sound right, since the northern Cook
group is a long way off at S 10 deg latitude, vs our S 20 degrees.
630 might do fine at night for the area, but certainly not during the
day!
     The announcer stated that there’s live programming from 06:00 AM
local to 12:00 noon, Monday to Friday.  There’s no news department per
say.  Instead, if there is anything important, they’ll announce it.
On Saturdays, there may be some sports broadcasts.  He stated that at
other times, the programming is all computerized, and that sign-off
was at 23:30 local.  That makes pretty good sense, since everything
winds down very early on the island.  The stores/businesses are all
pretty much locked up by 4:00 pm, or 4:30 in some cases.  Afterwards,
only bars, restaurants, and some corner stores remain open.  Listening
at lunch today (Tuesday), there definitely still was some local live
programming until at least 12:05 pm or so.
     An interesting side note re the announcer, was that he recently
lost his home to an apparent arson (there’s been a spate of them
lately).  He was thankful that his family was safe, and that he could
regroup and carry on.  Asking him about KCFM (and others as well)
indicated that everyone knew about the station, but no one could tell
me what happened.  I can certainly say that there’s no indication that
they’re still on the air.  I suspect that they closed down in recent
months, but I won’t stake everything on that assumption.  People are
just happy to exist here, and don’t nosey around if it’s not their
business!  Unfortunately, the technical expert wasn’t around that day,
nor the owner who might have filled me in better on the details about
the station.  I certainly didn’t ask about QSL cards or the like!
     Around the back of the station is a large satellite dish, as well
as the presumed FM tower next to it.  Looking closely, though, there
was also a small dipole antenna with 3 lengths, cut for different wave
bands, I guess.  It was all twisted up, but with my experience
receiving RNZI, it’s always super strong, even with a short whip
antenna!  Adrian Sainsbury of RNZI very likely erected it on one of
his technical visits (the 2 RCI workers both knew Adrian) for
reception of DRM transmissions, for further re-broadcast on RCI, which
is very often, especially in the mornings for news, etc.  When I asked
about KCFM, they pointed me further up the street, but going up there,
there’s absolutely no sign of any other stations.  There is the large
Cook Islands telecom building just up the street and across, with 2
even larger satellite dishes, but they advertise cell phones, internet
services and the like there.  (Speaking of cell service, it’s
ubiquitous here with probably a good half-dozen cell repeater towers
scattered around the island).
     That summarizes my visit to RCI.  Sorry for not being able to
find out any further technical details!   73,   Walt Salmaniw,
Rarotonga, Cook Islands.

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