25 years in the making..

Its going to be the typical David and Goliath scenario.

Triple X FM goes to air in March 2010 using a 'Low powered' FM transmitter in Paraparaumu. They call it low powered because its the equivalant of half a watt of power. Why such a small transmitter? Simple... The Government regulates who gets a full powered FM licence to broadcast using an auction process. Until we can get our hands on one of those we are restricted in our transmitter power.

Here's how it works.

Since about the early 90's the government has instructed the Radio Spectrum Managment division of the Ministry of Economic Development to identify FM frequencies in any area of NZ and to auction them off to the highest bidder. Now, while that was 'supposed' to create a open and competitve radio industry, it has actually failed. Since 2000 there exists a duopoly consisting of merely TWO radio companies (Radioworks and The Radio Network) who snapped up all the local radio stations, outbid all private individuals who wanted to run a radio station, and networked these stations out of Auckland.

Back in 2000 Radioworks 'aquired' 2XXFM and I left the station. In 2001, with radio still firmly flowing through my blood, I started investigating how this frequency auction process actually worked. Could I get my mits on a licence? It seemed highly unlikely. According to the Government department RSM there were NO more frequencies avaliable for use in Kapiti. Bummer.

The Battle begins...

What RSM actually meant was - there were no frequencies in Kapiti that they had 'identified' as usable in Kapiti.

So armed with a calculator, a piece of paper and a car radio I parked up at the water tower high above Paraparaumu and scanned every frequency in use from Palmerston North to Wellington..... searching for the slightest gap between them where, maybe, just maybe, I could broadcast on....

Stay tuned, there's more to come, after the break....