About 25 years ago I talked to Harry Banks who was an operator at Wellington Radio in 1928. I recorded what he had to say and attach my version of what he had to say.

20 or 30 years ago, with a recorder running, I talked to Harry Banks who I knew had had been with Hobart Radio VIH in about 1970. This is a partial summary of the resulting tape.

Harry Banks grew up in Wellington, New Zealand, living in a house overlooking the harbour.
While he was still at school, an electrician boarded with the family and taught Harry Morse code.

So Harry had a buzzer and key to practice with. He also had a crystal set to listen to the local broadcast station and ships on 600M.
One day, Harry connected the buzzer to his crystal set aerial and called a ship coming in to Wellington.
The ship replied!! So Harry immediately went outside to lower his aerial in case a Radio Inspector came to investigate.

Harry left school at 15 and went to work for the Post Office. Becoming interested in wire telegraphy, within six months he was working as a telegrapher.
He joined a radio club and passed the Amateur examination whilst only 15. When he was 17, he passed the Commercial radio license exam, needing a lawyers
help to obtain the license as he was below the age of 18.

The Post Office then sent him to work as an operator at Wellington Radio in 1928. He was one of three operators and was paid 23/9 per week.
VLW had a 2.5 KW Telefunken spark as the main transmitter and a smaller valve transmitter.
Harry was required to arrive at 7.30AM for an 8AM start. He had to sign for 1/3 of a pencil and often found there were 30 messages
waiting to be sent to the Central Telegraph Office. (He said the PO wore even worse to work for than AWA in Australia.)

When the valve transmitter failed to work one evening when he was due to send the 9PM time signal, he used the spark transmitter.
“What a bloody row there was, it blocked out everything”, especially the local broadcast station 2PA.

Harry was sent to Arawua to replace a sick officer, via ship, train and model T Ford mail coach.
When he arrived, the operator was back at work so Harry worked there for one day before returning.

Back in Wellington, he was asked to go to Chatham Island.
He refused, and left the PO and joined the Union Steamship Company as a ship’s radio operator.

Harry moved to Australia in 1929, still employed by the shipping company and later worked for AWA.

He retired from VIH in 1976.

Richard Rogers, VK7RO. June 2026.

Got to work all the ZLs frequently. They were always friendly and professional. Regret I didn’t make it to the ZLW station itself, although I did get a grand tour around ZLB once, whilst alongside in Bluff.

Very Happy Days…….

Hi Jim: Have you seen our new section on NZPO radio technician training? Here’s the page for Trentham and I hope you let me know if you have any info to add (or correct) or photos.
https://maritimeradio.org/training/trentham-radio-school/
Cheers, Neil

Also happy memories of New Zealand in general – a lovely country and lovely people

I never visited ZLW in person or any other marine radio stations in NZ, but in my latter years at sea , I made a point, where feasible, to make such visits

One visit in particular was Bahia Blanca in Argentina (with Lamport and Holt Line) where I actually went on air and was receiving and sending telegrams – a very lax station !

The Radio Training School was run by the Post Office and was situated in Taita. Many of us trainees lived in the PO Hostel at Trentham army camp and caught the train to the Radio School every day. Brian Webb and Brian Poole were the instructors when i attended.

Such a valuable service was provided by dedicated professionals in what was at times very difficult when there were distress situations. But it was good to hear the camaraderie among the interviewees, and it did provide me a smile with the Morse being keyed during the section on receive errors!