RNZ Pacific on 11725 kHz: New Zealand's shortwave service for the islands

What you hear

RNZ Pacific is a public-service station with a specific audience: the island nations scattered across the South Pacific. Much of the day it relays RNZ National, New Zealand's main talk and news network, so you hear long-form interviews, documentaries, music and sober New Zealand news read in New Zealand voices. Around that core come the Pacific programmes: regional news bulletins covering Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Vanuatu, the Solomons and the rest, and features made for and about island communities. Cyclone warnings go out on this service when storms threaten, which is one reason the islands' own stations keep a receiver on it.

Before the hour you may catch the interval signal, the call of the bellbird, a native New Zealand bird; it has identified the service for decades and is one of the prettiest station signatures on the bands. The schedule moves between frequencies through the day, so if 11725 kHz is quiet, 9700 and 13840 kHz are the other channels to try.

Who transmits and why

The service is run by Radio New Zealand, the national public broadcaster, from Wellington, and the shortwave transmitters stand at Rangitaiki, on the volcanic plateau of the North Island between Taupō and the Bay of Plenty. The reason for shortwave is geography: the Pacific island states are small, far apart and poorly served by any other medium that reaches all of them at once. Alongside the AM transmissions the service has also sent a digital DRM signal for island stations to rebroadcast on FM, which is how much of its audience actually hears it. The choice of frequency follows the sun: a higher band when the path is in daylight, a lower one after dark.

When and where to listen

For the Pacific itself, Australia and the US west coast the station is routine, and a receiver in New Zealand or Australia will show it strong at almost any hour. From Europe it is one of the long-haul challenges of shortwave listening: the path runs nearly half-way round the globe, and the signal is weak, fluttery and only present when both ends of the path are in the right light. Many European listeners have heard it in the early European morning on 11725 or 9700 kHz, in the hours around 06:00 to 08:00 UTC, when the New Zealand evening transmission is still running; winter mornings in Europe tend to do better. Do not expect programme-quality audio; expect a voice in the noise and the pleasure of knowing where it comes from.

The catalogue mode is AM. For the weak European copy, upper or lower sideband with a narrow filter pulls the voice out far better, and the bellbird is easier to recognise that way.

In ShackDeck

Find it under Station catalogue → Shortwave broadcast → RNZ Pacific. ShackDeck picks a public receiver whose range covers 11725 kHz, tunes it and sets AM from the catalogue; no receiver, antenna or account of your own is required. For a first listen, let the program choose a receiver in New Zealand or Australia and hear what the station really sounds like, then come back with a European receiver on a winter morning for the sport.