Radio 2AP Samoa in 1949
WIRELESS waves have
taken Samoa by storm.
Radio 2AP, non-existent
a year ago and established by the
late Major E. Lloyd, formerly of
2YZ Napier, ranks as one of the
achievements of the New Zealand
administration in Samoa. On any of
the five nights a week on which 2AP
is on the air, from village to village
throughout Samoa, at least two-thirds
of the inhabitants are listening. There
is no newspaper in Western Samoa
except for a daily foolscap administration newsheet, a hundred or two copies
of which are duplicated and circulated
around the town of Apia.
Major Lloyd was a man of wide
island experience. I first ran into him
in Fiji during the war, where he was
commanding the School of Instruction
at Vatukoula. He was well known in
Christchurch before the war as the
original Professor Speedee of the 3ZB
Quiz sessions. From Fiji he moved on
to Tarawa, Canton and Ocean Island,
as an officer of the Western-Pacific High
Commission, and his recent death was
a sad blow alike to his friends, the
Broadcasting Service and, the administration in Samoa.
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The late Major Lloyd of 2AP Samoa
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During the day he administered the
radio station and at nights announced
the programmes that he had concocted
by day. In his spare time he saw his
wife. However, shortly before my arrival he devised a cunning arrangement
whereby he would see more of her.
Certain set programmes which come
from New Zealand were running short
as the Matua had been off for three
months' overhaul. The Children's Hour
was the particular shortage. So Mrs.
Lloyd was detailed for an audition -
and told she had better be good. She
satisfied a critical husband and was
soon running a Women's Session to
boot, featuring as a sort of hybrid
Aunt Daisy-cum-Christopher Robin.
Stahlin, the Samoan announcer, is a
fluent bilinguist, and he daily translates the news, foreign and local, into
Samoan. I had personal experience of
the effective nature of messages put
over in his Samoan hour. My own
arrival at the hospital was mentioned
in the local news, as opticians are rare
objects in Samoa. Within a couple of
days, and before my equipment was
unpacked, Samoans were in from out-lying islands to see me. Subsequently,
I put several messages over the radio
to patients in distant parts and they
were invariably received. I had previously been sceptical of the value of
radio messages. For many years I
have been a student of police messages.
I have never yet seen the green Ford
tourer with the dented rear mudguard
and the right number-plate. However,
my scepticism has been jolted.
Samoans certainly listen to their radio.
THE broadcasting station itself is
situated at Mulinu'u, a mile along
the beach from Apia, and, appropriately
enough, near the Fono House, or
Samoan parliament. "Fono," which is
not related to the "phono" of phonograph, means "council," though I suspect
philologists could develop a thesis,
on the connection. The station has a
large main studio, a couple of smaller
ones, record store, offices and, of
course, the inevitable room. chock-full
of gadgets. Mulinu'u relays the programmes to the transmitter at Afiamalo,
seven miles back in the hills. Programmes are actually broadcast to the
transmitter on shortwave and are not
sent by cable. Cables require heavy
maintenance in the tropics - and they
make excellent clothes lines. From
Afiamalo the programmes are retransmitted on broadcast. I will leave it to
the experts to ponder how any self-respecting wireless wave, short or long,
finds its way through seven miles of
jungle, 200 inches of rainfall, climbs
3,000 feet to Afiamalo, and then gets
back again.
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The 2AP studio building
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The staff at the transmitter consists
of Afa, the Samoan rousabout, and
Cam Turner, the technician. Turner,
in typical island style, had gone to
Samoa nine months previously to
relieve for three months. He was
studying for his A.M.I.E.E., and I frequently envied him the application
that could keep him grinding away all
day on the lawn under a flamboyant
tree. Solid swotting in the tropics is
not easy. Eventually the fatal day of
the examination came. Arrangements
had been made for the postmaster to
act as examiner. At nine o'clock Turner
duly arrived at the post office and Mr
Taylor solemnly broke the seals of a
very confidential package from Island
Territories. They had enclosed all the
instructions for the conduct of the
examination, everything in fact except
the examination questions themselves.
This was a bitter blow, as being an
English examination it would mean
waiting another year. However, they
contacted Wellington, and within a
couple of hours an operator at the
radio station was copying down a complicated paper on electrical engineering,
with numerous technical diagrams.
It took ten hours' work at the keybaord to
complete. Eventually Turner started
his examination at 10.0 p.m., finishing at
about 3.0 a.m. After the marathon
effort of the operator and Turner's
ordeal of waiting, I sincerely hope he
got through.
THE Broadcasting Service features
the meetings oi the Legislative
Assembly. Parts of the sessions are
broadcast - as in New Zealand - and
the standard of debate is no higher, or
lower, than is usual here. Further,
the speakers are recorded on the
studio's tape machine. This is afterwards played back at appropriate speed
to the Government typists concerned
with the production of the Samoan
Hansard, an irregularly published periodical which makes
instructive and frequently humorous reading.
The radio has become immediately
available to all Samoans. True, not
many Samoans actually own a set, but
there is one Government set in each
village, usually in the fale of the fa'a
pule, or headman of the village. The
Samoan house has open walls - there is
no privacy in the European sense - and
the village just gathers around at listening time and listens. It would be
very interesting to evaluate the total
effect for good or evil of this new feature of Samoan life. Certainly a heavy
responsibility rests on the shoulders of
the admministration and the Broadcasting
Service.
This material remains © APN Holdings NZ Limited 2013 and is only to be used for non-commercial personal or research use. Any other use requires permission of the copyright holder.
Feature supplied by Phillipa Downie in memory of her late father Major E Lloyd [formerly 2YZ Napier] who established 2AP Apia.
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