Kia Orana Niki,
Back in late 1992 or early 1993, DXers were puzzled as to the disappearance or lack of loggings of Radio Cook Islands on its 11760 frequency in the 25 meterband. I was curious, too, as RCI was one of my favorite stations to enjoy when the ionosphere cooperated. In April of 1993 I won an award at my workplace that allowed me to take a trip to the destination of my choice. After some consideration, I chose the Cook Islands. Part of my reason was to visit the studios of Radio Cook Island and investigate for myself. Once on the main island of Rarotonga I discovered that RCI was booming in on 630 kHz mediumwave, but was no where to be found on or nearby 11760 kHz. I listened day and night over the first half of a week for the signal, without success. On a beautiful, warm Thursday morning in the Cooks, I strolled through downtown Rarotonga and easily located the facilities of RCI. I introduced myself to the receptionist, and explained my curiousity at the absence of a shortwave signal from their station. She became a bit upset, and INSISTED that they were on the air on shortwave-- she rustled a newspaper in my face and pointed to their advertisement: "Radio Cook Islands, 630 MW, 11760 SW". Of course we're on the air, she said, "it's right here in the paper". Eventually I spoke with two engineers, who told me that a transmitter fire in a local "telecomm" building (shared with Rarotonga's phone company equipment) had burned down the RCI shortwave transmitter some months earlier. I don't recall if they mentioned a date, but I got the impression it had happened four or five months before my visit (the gentlemen were very soft-spoken in English with a strong Rarotongan accent). They also said that they had no plans to rebuild or return to shortwave; the nation was served well with their network of FM transmitters and repeaters. After thanking the engineers for the information, I was able to get them to pose in the entrance to the RCI building for a photograph. Later in the day I found the old foundation of the small telecomm building near a city square. The concrete pad showed obvious burn marks and scorches. Before I left the Cook Islands I made a 90-minute "local" quality cassette tape of Radio Cook Islands mediumwave programming, since my Rarotongan Resort location was only a few miles from the 630 kHz transmitter. I used a Grundig Satellit 500 and a Marantz PMD-221 recorder. For me, it's a very nice audio record of my visit. The tape includes both sign-on and sign-off announcements, IDs, national anthem and hymn, local advertisements, local news & weather bulletins, and a lot of that great Cook Island music! RCI's broadcasts sounded much like the SIBC (5020 kHz) does today-- lots of local flavor. Perhaps I could transcribe this to a monaural, low-bitrate MP3 recording(s) for sharing with others if there's any interest. I enjoy DXpeditions to the Washington State coast 3-4 times per year, and I always check out 630 kHz for the possibility of Radio Cook Islands. I've heard lots of interesting mediumwave DX signals from the coast using directional Beverage antennas, but I've yet to hear the Cooks on 630. To my knowledge, the last confirmed logging of the Cooks on MW was by Patrick Martin of Seaside, OR in the 1980s. I've logged Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Tahiti, etc. a number of times on mediumwave, but unfortunately only domestic USA stations on 630. Here's a very good article with photos about Radio Cook Islands: http://radiodx.com/spdxr/Cooks.htm If you're interested in radio from elsewhere in the Pacific, this web site will have your attention for many hours! Guy Atkins Puyallup, WA USA -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Sunny Beach Lodge Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 11:21 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [HCDX] Radio Cook Islands (shortwave) Kia Orana My name is Niki, I 'm new to the Hardcore DX List, in fact I'm new to this whole DX thing. I read an article from a Wavescan program in 2000, about Radio Cook Islands on shortwave. That's history now, it seems I was 10 years too late. But I've been wanting to find out more about this shortwave service, and what happened when it went off the air. What kind of programs did it air. Perhaps some of you might have recordings of this station. I look forward to hearing from you folks! Regards Niki ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- World Radio TV Handbook 2004 is coming out! Preorder yours now! Only $20.97 through us. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823059685/hardcoredxcom ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://dallas.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ _______________________________________________ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt
