Re: [IRCA] Radio adventure in the Cook Islands

["Paul B. Walker, Jr." <walkerbroadcasting@xxxxxxxxx>]

Walt:

COOL Report!!

I listen to Radio Cook Islands on the internet from time to time. I
occassionally like to turn them on as I go to bed and fall asleep to their
tropical music.

880 is KRVN Lexington, NE with 50KW/4 towers beaming west.

Paul

On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 1:33 AM, Walter Salmaniw <canswl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Greetings to all!  Having rented a car this afternoon, I spent about 3
> hours driving around the island, exploring, especially any radio
> sites.  There are precious few stations around it seems.  In Avarua
> town, the only real town on the island of Rarotonga does have a FM
> station (sign on the main road) for Matariki FM
> (www.matarikifm.co.ck).  Apparently they have 3 repeaters, which must
> be a handful of watts each and are listed as follows:
>
> 96.7 (Matavera to Black Rock  (basically the north coast)
> 91.9 (Black Rock to Tikioki)  I think this is the west and south coast
> 99.9  (Tikioki to Matavera)   Must be the east coast.
>
> We’re staying in the south west corner of the island.  I started by
> driving inland and followed the inner circle road for most of it’s
> length.  Very interesting as well!  This is the old Cook Islands with
> all the farms, large estates, and other interesting things like the
> prison and hospital (lovely view of the north island from there).
>
> Just a few hundred meters inland from my location, I ran across an
> antenna farm consisting of 3 dipole arrays, facing east/west,
> north/south, and across the road, NW/SE.  There’s a building there
> too, and looking at it closely, there’s a small sign on the door
> (locked) as follows:  Ministry of Transport    Civil Aviation Division
>    Receiver station.
> Co-ordinates are as follows:   S 21 deg 15 min  05.680 sec/  W 159 deg
> 48min 50.054 sec.  This is about 4 km south of the airport.  I found
> it strictly by accident.  I’m not sure of the HF frequencies used by
> Rarotonga, but I suspect they are rarely used.  There’s not a lot of
> traffic in and out of the airport.  Perhaps there’s a VOLMET service.
> I’m not sure.
>      Continuing south, I explored the large abandoned Sheraton Resort
> in the SW corner of the island near Vaimaanga.  It’s a very imposing
> site with many buildings up to 3 stories hight which was almost
> finished, but then abandoned.  Apparently, one of the principles took
> off with the money, and it was never completed.  A real shame, as it
> would have been gorgeous, judging from the large soaker tubs in many
> of the rooms, now slowly reverting to nature with all the windows
> broken, and graffiti everywhere.
>
>      Continuing north on the east side of the island, I returned to
> the transmitter site of Radio Cook Islands.  The coordinates are as
> follows:
>      S 21 deg 13 min 05.285 sec   and W 159 deg 44 min 09.391 sec at
> an elevation of 12’ according to my GPS on the smart phone.  It’s
> directly at the north-west corner of the Matavera school.  Again,
> absolutely no markings, other than “high voltage” signs in English and
> Cook Island Maori.  Not a hint of any broadcast significance.  The
> tower, itself, appears to be about 200’ high, and has fading red/white
> painting.  No obvious light on the top.  Plenty of guy wires across
> the school yard.  PAL lists 2.5 kW.  It doesn’t get out that well even
> on the island.  Not bad, but not super strong.  I didn’t see any sign
> of studios, which I’m assuming are in Avarua town.  This is a very
> poor island, so finances are always very tight here.  The people,
> though, are absolutely very friendly, even though, they are quite
> difficult to understand.  Heavily accented English, quite slurred, it
> would seem.  They don’t understand us very well either, so we usually
> have to repeat ourselves a time or two, before being understood!
>      Towards the end of my circle journey, I drove on the mountain
> side of the airport to find the other antenna farm, located on the
> south-west side of the airport at the following
> Coordinates:  S 21 deg 12 min 26.29 sec/  W 159 deg 49 min 06.09 sec.
> The antennae are located on a 9 hole golf course.  Besides dipoles,
> there also was a fan array, as well as a long-wire end fed antenna.
> I’m assuming this is the transmission site for the airport.
>
>      Anyway, I hope you find this a bit interesting.  Internet runs
> $0.30 per MB, so I’m very careful with downloading anything!  It’s
> reasonably quick, though, at least compared to cruise ships.  After 6
> days, I’ve used 30 of my 50 MB allotment.
>
>      A quick comment on MW reception.  During the day, only 630 is
> audible.  Late in the evening, Hawaii, New Zealand, and RFO Tahiti are
> all heard reasonably well, especially after around 08:00 UTC.  Lot’s
> of hets, too, presumably from North/Central American stations.  One
> frequency that I found interesting was 880, heard earlier this week
> discussing Nebraska public schools.  Is there a Nebraska AM station on
> 880?  1440 Kiribati is often quite strong.  “One minute to 7” heard at
> 07:00 in English, in an otherwise local language programming.
>      On SW, daytime is pretty dismal, but at night, there is some
> interesting things to hear:
>
> 15120  Voice of Nigeria at good level in English at 05:56, over a
> co-channel (?CRI)
> 17665:  VORWS at excellent level at 02:12 in English.  15630 also very
> good, while 17690 was only poor.
> 11905:  SLBC fair/good with subcontinental music, and English news at
> 02:17 to 02:20.
> Last night, 8 Dec:
> 17780  Radio Romania International at good/very good level in English
> at 06:30, // 21600 almost as good, 9600 DRM with very loud buzz, and
> 7310 probably the strongest of all of the frequencies, even though I’m
> sure it’s not directed to the Pacific.
> 6160    CBC at poor level with the loud het from Nfld. At 06:33
> 6070:  CFRX weak with cochannel at 0637
> 9505:  Sudan with excellent signal and horn of Africa music at 06:42,
> then “Sudaniya” heard.  They then gave an internet address (including
> sudanradio), then “Obdurman, Sudan.  Then OC, which was still there at
> 06:45.
>
> 73 to all!  Walt Salmaniw, Rarotonga, Cook Islands
>
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