Bay Harbour: November 01, 2023

<strong>Bay</strong> <strong>Harbour</strong> News Wednesday <strong>November</strong> 1 <strong>2023</strong><br />

16<br />

TREASURES FROM THE PAST<br />

Lyttelton’s first radio station makes waves<br />

IN ABOUT 1926, a curious<br />

crowd gathered outside the<br />

shopfront of H. H Lublow, Ladies<br />

& Gents High Class Tailor, at<br />

what is today the Civil and Naval<br />

Bar on London St. Ms Rosa<br />

Moir’s vehicle was apparently<br />

parked out front with her leaning<br />

on the bonnet, and Mr Dick<br />

Pascoe was striding towards<br />

the crowd (from the right in<br />

the photo). The object of the<br />

townspeople’s curiosity was the<br />

strange and wondrous sound of<br />

the first public radiotelephonic<br />

broadcast in Whakaraupō<br />

Lyttelton <strong>Harbour</strong>.<br />

Just over 30 years earlier, in<br />

1895, Guglielmo Marconi’s<br />

invention of wireless telegraphy<br />

had marked a pivotal moment in<br />

the history of telecommunications.<br />

Marconi’s ground-breaking<br />

innovation allowed Morse<br />

code signals to be transmitted<br />

over electromagnetic waves,<br />

revolutionising long distance<br />

communication.<br />

In 19<strong>01</strong>, Marconi achieved<br />

another historic milestone by<br />

successfully demonstrating the<br />

first transatlantic broadcast,<br />

showcasing the immense potential<br />

of his wireless telegraphy<br />

system.<br />

The year 1904 saw the invention<br />

of the diode vacuum tube,<br />

often referred to as the ‘Fleming<br />

valve’ after John Ambrose<br />

Fleming, who developed the<br />

technology while working for the<br />

Marconi Company.<br />

Subsequently, in 1907, Lee de<br />

Forest introduced the audion<br />

tube, a rudimentary version of<br />

what would later become known<br />

as the triode valve amplifier.<br />

These inventions turbocharged<br />

the development of electronic<br />

technologies and engineering<br />

in the early 20th century, and<br />

most especially the development<br />

of wireless communications. By<br />

1910, the term ‘radio’ had been<br />

adopted to describe these various<br />

wireless systems, and radiotelegraphy<br />

spanned the entire planet.<br />

Then WW1 drove the rapid<br />

technological development of<br />

wireless telegraphy and telephony<br />

for military communications,<br />

which became key to dominance<br />

of the modern battlefields across<br />

Listening to Ōhinehou Lyttelton’s first radio outside H.H Lublow’s. Te Ūaka The Lyttelton<br />

Museum ref. 11898.1 https://www.teuaka.org.nz/online-collection/1132580<br />

Europe and Mesopotamia and<br />

around the world’s oceans.<br />

Post war, radio wave transmission<br />

and reception remained<br />

largely within the domain of<br />

secure government communications.<br />

However, the technology<br />

had matured, setting the stage<br />

for broader public applications.<br />

In New Zealand, only a select<br />

few enthusiasts possessed the<br />

resources to construct their<br />

own radio receivers, and even<br />

fewer could build transmitters.<br />

Government oversight was<br />

established over this nascent<br />

amateur radio field through<br />

radio licensing under the<br />

authority of the 1908 Post and<br />

Telegraph Act.<br />

The dawn of public radio<br />

broadcasting in New Zealand<br />

began on <strong>November</strong> 17, 1921<br />

when Otago University head<br />

of the physics Robert Jack<br />

transmitted the first public<br />

radio broadcast to a handful<br />

of listeners as far afield as<br />

Auckland.<br />

Collaborating with his<br />

students, he had assembled a<br />

small transmitter using parts<br />

imported from Britain, achieving<br />

the first successful nongovernmental<br />

radiotelephonic<br />

transmission in the country.<br />

The broadcast included music<br />

and featured the popular song<br />

Hello my dearie. Professor Jack<br />

was a visionary radio pioneer<br />

who realised through this new<br />

telecommunications technology<br />

“the whole life of the community<br />

will be broadened and educated<br />

by being brought into more<br />

effective touch with the life of the<br />

whole world”.<br />

His work led to the<br />

establishment of the Otago<br />

Radio Association and Aotearoa<br />

New Zealand’s first public radio<br />

broadcasting station, known<br />

today as Radio Dunedin, which<br />

started regular broadcasts on<br />

<strong>November</strong> 15, 1922. The station<br />

was the world’s fifth public radio<br />

station to start broadcasting, predating<br />

the BBC by five weeks,<br />

and is still operating as the oldest<br />

station outside the United States.<br />

By the end of 1923, Dunedin,<br />

along with Christchurch,<br />

Nelson, Wellington, Whanganui,<br />

Gisborne and Auckland, had<br />

active broadcasting stations.<br />

In 1925, the Radio<br />

Broadcasting Company<br />

Henry H. Lublow’s RCA Radiola 20 radio receiver (1925<br />

model). Te Ūaka The Lyttelton Museum ref. 1390.1<br />

https://www.teuaka.org.nz/online-collection/604091<br />

commenced broadcasts<br />

across New Zealand, further<br />

expanding the reach of radio<br />

communication.<br />

The growth of radio<br />

licensing in New Zealand was<br />

likewise remarkable. In 1922,<br />

approximately 750 individuals<br />

held radio licences, a number<br />

that soared to over 100,000<br />

by 1930. This transformation<br />

reflected the rapid and<br />

widespread adoption of radio<br />

technology across the nation.<br />

Aside from being a high-class<br />

tailor, Henry Herman Lublow<br />

was also a long-time member of<br />

the Lyttelton Fire Brigade and<br />

the Marine Brass Band, as well<br />

as an early radio enthusiast.<br />

On August 6, 1926 he paid £1<br />

(approximately $150 in <strong>2023</strong>)<br />

for a radio licence to establish<br />

and operate a radio receiving<br />

station using his battery operated<br />

Radiola 20.<br />

A five-valve radio receiver<br />

manufactured by the Radio<br />

Corporation of America,<br />

this was reportedly the first<br />

radio receiver in Whakaraupō<br />

Lyttelton.<br />

By 1930, the entrepreneurial<br />

Mr Lublow was riding the crest<br />

of the retail commercialisation<br />

of radio and gramophone<br />

technology as an agent for<br />

various luxuriously appointed,<br />

wood panelled radiogramophones,<br />

including the<br />

Majestic “Mighty Monarch of<br />

the Air” radio receiver priced<br />

at just £29 10s – or around<br />

$5000 in today’s currency.<br />

Such extravagances were<br />

becoming the middle-class<br />

norm as New Zealand embraced<br />

the modern age of global<br />

telecommunications, and never<br />

looked back.<br />

In years gone by,<br />

Whakaraupō’s well-regarded<br />

and eclectic Volcano Radio<br />

88.5 FM transmitted out of the<br />

former <strong>Harbour</strong> Board offices<br />

at Shadbolt House until the<br />

building was demolished after<br />

the devastating February 22,<br />

2<strong>01</strong>1 earthquake. Today, the<br />

harbour’s fine radio broadcasting<br />

tradition is carried on by<br />

Ōhinehou Lyttelton’s very own<br />

Rotten Radio 107.7 FM.<br />

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