2026 News

News from Musick Point Radio Group

May

Former Auckland Radio telegraphist Maurie Challinor visited the station. Maurie started his working life at Musick Point in 1951, aged 19.

At age 94, he has an excellent memory and is very fit, racing up the stairs right up to the ‘repeater room’ at the top. He’d probably have climbed the ladder on to the roof had we let him!
He told us quite a lot about the station, and some of his experiences which we have recorded.

Here’s one story: He was put straight on to the ‘ships desk’ in the downstairs room we now use as the transmitter room. He was told to just copy what he heard and the supervisor would come and collect his decoded messages. One day, not long after he’d started, he copied carefully some calls for assistance from one ship to another; when the supervisor eventually saw what he’d copied he was not happy at all because Maurie hadn’t let him know ASAP! – but Maurie had had no instructions otherwise, so he just carried on carefully copying all the messages! Obviously, there hadn’t been much “orientation” for the job!

On his first day he went down the road for his lunch which was provided for staff at the hostel (now long gone) where he was roundly told off by the cook because he hadn’t given him notice there would be an extra person. After that, Maurie didn’t ever bother going there again! As they finished their shifts at about 2pm he just went home for lunch.

After a year or so at Musick Point he was told he had to go to the town post office, where he worked for some years in the telegraph office.

Maurie was accompanied on his visit by his son John, his daughter Chris and Chris’ husband Martin.

June

Mervyn Thomas ZL1SK because a silent key on 30 June, aged 94. Merv was brought up in Timaru. He became an expert musician at an early age, forming his own dance band in the 1950s. He played the trombone, trumpet and the piano. He played the trombone ‘rif’ for the 1960s hit by Allison Durbin I Have Loved Me a Man. His involvement with audio systems for the band led to an interest in electronics, which in turn led him into amateur radio.