Birthday show for local radio

 

Popular local radio station, 106.4 Heads FM, is celebrat-ing ten years on air.

It was late September in 2004, when then Radio Hauraki morning DJ, Mark Perry, decided to start a small half watt radio station as a week-end hobby while staying at his holiday house at Mangawhai.

A small antenna was installed on the roof at Jeanette Forde’s Mangawhai Lodge, a good site to cover the area.

From these basic beginnings – and with thanks to a handful of foundation adver-tisers including Jim Wintle and his original hardware store (now Placemakers), Craig Matheson Real Estate, the recently departed Terry Leabourn of Leabourn Transport, and Margaret Fish of Sail Rock Café – a local enterprise was born.

When Mark resigned from Radio Hauraki in 2007, he and his wife moved to Mangawhai full time. They applied to pur-chase a 50 watt radio licence, which was granted in 2010.

Now, the full-powered Heads 106.4 FM broadcasts from Bream Tail covering Man-gawhai and the Heads, Waipu and the Cove, Langs Beach, Ruakaka and up to Marsden Point. Heads FM also streams to the world via the internet.

“Local advertisers and lis-teners appreciate hearing their own people and services on air along with free public-ity for all community events,” says Mark Perry. “They get information instantly in case of any Civil Defence emergency, which the out of town stations cannot achieve. Also, being the local station, what’s invested on the station for ad-vertising is spent in the local community, rather than going to overseas shareholders.”

Stay tuned, adds Mark, there’s more exciting devel-opments yet to happen in the next ten years. „ Heads FM is streaming live via Facebook at facebook.com/Heads106.4FM or tune in at tunein.com/radio/Heads-1064FM-s167040/

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