Radio B’ville reaches out to rural listeners

By STEPHANIE ELIZAH
GOVERNMENT information can now be relayed throughout Buka Island and the atolls in North Bougainville and parts of Central Bougainville after work on upgrading the National Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio Bougainville was completed last Friday.
National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) engineering and technical services executive director Robin Vuvut said work on increasing the station’s transmission from 300W to 1,000W was aimed at ensuring better coverage of the autonomous region.
He said two teams had been deployed to the region, with installation work being carried out in Buka and Arawa.
Vuvut said the project, which had taken a year to reach Bougainville, “is part of a nationwide rollout of NBC broadcasting services, under the leadership of new managing director Memafu Kafera”.
“Bougainville is the third location to have its equipment upgraded after Kavieng and Rabaul.
“Eventually we will increase transmission to Buin and other districts in South Bougainville once a feasibility on existing communication towers in the area is completed and depending on the funds we have,” Vuvut said.
He said as part of the upgrade, NBC was now negotiating with the National Information and Communication Technology Authority to buy three frequencies for its three broadcast services of Karai, Tribe FM and Radio Bougainville.
“Local service, which is now being heard on 100.1FM, will relocate to 95.5FM, Karai service will be on 90.7FM and Tribe will be heard on 92FM,” Vuvut said.
Vuvut said Radio Bougainville would begin broadcast on 95.5FM this week however the change in frequency for Radio Bougainville has the management of community radio station New Dawn FM fearful that there could be interference with transmission of both stations.
“NBC’s bandwidth is too close to New Dawn’s 95.3FM and there may be interferences on both our stations. I urge NICTA to review its allotment of bandwidths to avoid this inconvenience,” Aloysius Laukai, managing director of New Dawn FM, said.