Ruled the region’s airwaves
Geneva, Switzerland, relayed to Titahi Bay and onwards to all of New Zealand.
Bob Cater, former president of the Porirua Historical Association, said Nash’s address highlighted the reason the mast was built. As much as it allowed New Zealand to transmit large distances, including internationally, it allowed us to pick up international broadcasts.
Before that, local masts broadcast to a local area.
Transmissions from Mt Victoria in Wellington were patchy at best by the time they reached Porirua.
A ‘‘quite extraordinary’’ hunt for the perfect spot in New Zealand was mounted for the mast before Titahi Bay was chosen.
Building the mast was a massive undertaking, but New Zealand already had a history of fine steel engineering, thanks to rail viaducts on the main trunk line.
Cater recalled talking to one worker on the mast, who had a history in building viaducts.
‘‘I remember him saying it got pretty scary at times when he got right up there,’’ Cater said.
‘‘There was a fair bit of flexibility up there. It would sway quite markedly.’’
Amazingly, there were no serious accidents. It has been eight decades and the mast is still standing. It has survived the storms from June 2013, and the 1968 storm that sank the Wahine.
It has broadcast news of World War II, the Vietnam war, the Queen’s coronation, and man’s first walk on the Moon. It has survived the arrival of FM radio.
‘‘I just think it’s a part of our visual landscape,’’ Cater said, adding he still tunes in to the mast’s more-forgiving AM signal as he potters around listening to his pocket radio.