Mountain radio service closes: Donates a whopping $44,000 to Greenlea rescue chopper

Members of the Central North Island Mountain Radio Service present their $44,000 donation to staff at the Greenlea rescue helicopter hangar in Taupo. Image was taken before lockdown. Photo / Supplied

From one helping service to another - the advent of technology may have meant the loss of one, but a boost to another.

So it proved last week before lockdown when the volunteer members of the not-for-profit group Central North Island Mountain Radio Service gathered at the Greenlea rescue helicopter hangar for one of their last duties - donating the remainder of the group's funds to the rescue helicopter and its parent organisation the Philips Search and Rescue Trust.

The group, which wound up earlier this year, had $44,000 of accumulated funds that had to go to another charity or not-for-profit.

The presentation marked the end of nearly 40 years of the Central North Island Mountain Radio Service which was originally founded by Taupō man John Head in the mid-1980s.

Secretary/treasurer Peter Dare says the service hired out portable field radios to people and had a 7.30pm daily 'sked', a scheduled listening time and weather broadcast, which was done by volunteers.

He says the radios were mainly hired by hunters, plus some trampers. School groups such as St Paul's Venture School at Tihoi were also regular hirers.

The sked on the mountain radio's high frequency of 3345kHz would give out the weather report for the North Island mountain areas or any specific areas if requested and also took messages to pass on, such as letting family or contacts know that all was well, or that an earlier helicopter pickup was wanted, Mr Dare said.

However the mountain radios were also used to summon help in an emergency.

"Over the years we have had many incidents where it's been used for search and rescue, perhaps where people got into trouble and they've been able to call in on the radio and they've been able to get assistance.

"We guaranteed somebody to be there [listening in] at a scheduled time but people [also] had radios running in their place or business or their workshop or at home."

Tramps, hunters and school groups all used mountain radios over the nearly 40 years the Central North Island Mountain Radio Service was in operation. Photo / Dean Raynel

The success of having a distress message picked up outside the skeds depended on the number of locals listening, the number of receivers and the propagation (radio signal travel) which varied with the time of day and weather conditions.

However in recent years mountain radios had been gradually overtaken by satellite technology, Mr Dare said. The number of volunteers available for the 'skeds' had also fallen off.

Once the group had decided to wind up, the biggest question was what to do with the money it had accumulated - a whopping $44,000 - over the years. The relatively modest hireage charge of $5 per radio per day over 35 or so years, a brisk trade in hireage and the fact that most of the radios had been donated had meant the service had amassed quite a pile of cash.

Nowadays people heading into the outdoors tended to carry personal locator beacons or satellite communicators like Garmin InReach, which had reduced the demand for mountain radios, he said.

The Central North Island Mountain Radio Service was an incorporated society which was wound up two months ago and had about six members at the time.

Mr Dare says given the close association between the Taupō rescue helicopter, which was started up by the Philips Search and Rescue Trust at around the same time as the mountain radio service, it seemed like a good idea to donate the leftover funds to the Greenlea rescue helicopter.

"We had to donate our assets to an organisation that had the same objectives and the rescue helicopter suited that."

The Greenlea rescue helicopter coming in to land at its Taupō Airport base. Photo / NZME

There are still other mountain radio services around the country, including in Canterbury, Hastings and Wellington that are still operating, Mr Dare said.

The original founder of the service, John Head, now lives in Pukekohe, but came up with the idea of setting up a service in Taupō in about 1985 after seeing mountain radio used while on a Mountain Safety Council course in the Hawke's Bay.

Mr Head had support from the Taupō Amateur Radio Club and was a New Zealand Forest Service honorary ranger. He spent about two years giving talks to local service clubs and receiving small donations for the new service while carrying all the initial expenses out of his own pocket.

Eventually a local women's service club donated the full cost of the service's first radio. Other support came from as far away as Ohakune, hence the name change to the Central North Island Mountain Radio Service.

For the first 18 months to two years Mr Head ran the mountain radio service's base station seven nights a week on his own until he managed to set up more base stations and operators.

"Over the years numerous searches were started through the use of the mountain radio service and I know for certain that at least one life was saved through information coming through the service," Mr Head says.

"Although I'm sorry to see the service wound up, I'm not surprised with the advances in GPS and communications technology and the time required for volunteers to run it."

Greenlea rescue helicopter pilot and base manager Nat Every says the service is very appreciative of the money.

"It's an incredibly generous donation from an organisation that provided such an amazing service over the years and in passing it on to us, we'll be able to continue what they've been doing in providing a service for people in need."

Taupō Police Senior Constable Barry Shepherd of Taupo Police, who has been involved in hundreds of search and rescue operations, says the Central North Island Mountain Radio Service provided a worthwhile service to outdoors adventurers especially during the 1980s and 1990s before being overtaken in recent years by new technology.