The Project
The Radio Heritage Collection is the realisation of New Zealand DXer David Ricquish’s ambition to bring together radio stories in a readily accesible media. Too often these stories are published in a monthly magazine and thereafter rarely see the light of day. David has been joined in this project by Adrian Peterson, Martin Hadlow, Jack Fox, Paul Ormandy and numerous others. |
The Story of the Radio Heritage Collection ©
How did this project, to record and preserve the heritage of radio in the Pacific, and eventually, around the world, get started. And why. Simply that memories are fading, papers being lost and destroyed, recording tapes breaking up, and the people involved may think they played an insignificant role in the development of radio broadcasting. And, because the internet provides the perfect place to bring everything together for the first time.
Pacific Stories
What began as an article on WXLE Canton Island many years ago, has grown considerably since. Along the way, we’ve picked up other stories about radio in the Pacific, ‘discovered’ the American and Australian radio networks from WWII, and added all sorts of items which reveal the heritage of radio in this part of the world.Originally, some stories appeared in the NZDXT where they may have been seen by 500 or fewer subscribers living mainly in New Zealand. And, over the years, they simply became lost from the sight of day and a wider audience. Of course, they’re also stories mainly from the viewpoint of listeners. We’re slowly adding stories from broadcasters themselves. We focus on the human stories, rather than dry ‘official’ reports and statistics.
Unearthing New Material
More recently, Adrian Peterson has added stories from his vast collection of Pacific radio material, and these are also being broadcast in Wavescan over Adventist World Radio stations around the world.
Some of the stations written about have attracted more memories from those involved with them, such as WXLE Canton Island and KMTH Midway Island, and new nuggets of knowledge add to these stories.
NZRDXL Archives
Many years ago, the New Zealand Radio DX League made a decision to preserve and protect some of the original material collected by members, such as QSL cards and letters, logbooks, magazines, brochures and pamphlets from radio stations, and other collectibles.
These are housed at the Hocken Library, part of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Regular donations of new material are made to the NZRDXL Archives, where they’re housed and maintained properly, and available to researchers and those interested in radio.
Work-in-Progress
From these and many other resources, the Radio Heritage Collection © is slowly emerging, hosted on the website of the NZRDXL as a work-in-progress. The aim is to bring together, in one place, the stories of radio, initially in the Pacific. They may be contemporary or historical. From the viewpoint of broadcasters, listeners, observers, commentators and researchers.
We hope to make the website a comfortable place to visit from a social, cultural, political, engineering, historical, radio, DX, artistic or other viewpoint. A place where everyone can find something useful, interesting and entertaining, no matter what their interest in radio.
What You’ll Find For Each Station
Gradually, the structure of the site will become clearer. We’ll make it easier to navigate and find things. We’ll add maps and have feature stories and stations.
For any given station, you’ll begin to find stories about how it came to be, interesting and exciting times, photos of the studios, transmitters and towers, information about the staff, artwork from old logos and marketing or propaganda material, program schedules, and sound bites so you can listen to what the station sounded like.
If it’s still on the air, we’ll give you links to their webpages and streaming audio, so you can follow their latest activities and listen to them today. We’ll list any books or other publications we know exist about the station.
Imagine A Very Big Jigsaw Puzzle
Imagine a very large jigsaw puzzle of callsigns, locations, frequencies, stations, stretching over 80 years, many countries and some 2500 plus individual radio stations, and you’re starting to get an idea of the size of the project in the Pacific alone.
Lots of the pieces have been hidden for a long time, so we have no idea what the final picture will look like. But, with the help of people all over the world, we’re starting to make progress after some 18 months on-line.
Become Part Of The Team!
It’s easy. Write your own story about any aspect of Pacific radio. Send us articles from old magazines or newspapers. Copies of station collectibles (scanned is fine), logos, artwork, Top 40 playlists, and other material which illustrates the ‘sound’ of the time. Photos of people, studios, events and towers and transmitters.
If you work for a radio station, you can sponsor the story of your own station here. More details on sponsorship research programs will be on the site shortly.
You maintain authorship of material you send us. We will seek permissions for inclusion in the Radio Heritage Collection © from original authors and publishers where known in all cases. Materials added to the Collection may be published on this website, in the NZDXT and elsewhere. Any royalties earned will be split between the author, the Radio Heritage Collection © and the New Zealand Radio DX League.
Contact us:
Radio Heritage Collection ©
PO Box 14339
Wellington
New Zealand
Radio Heritage Collection ©
The project is supported by the Ragusa Media Group who hold copyright to the content of the Radio Heritage Collection © on this website, as hosted at the South Pacific DX Resource on www.radiodx.com the website of the New Zealand Radio DX League.
The initial advisory board for the project is the Heritage Committee of the New Zealand Radio DX League, and comprises David Ricquish (Chairman), Paul Ormandy, Adrian Peterson, Martin Hadlow, and Jack Fox.
Updated: January 2002