Eyes Above The Waves

Robert O'Callahan. Christian. Repatriate Kiwi. Hacker.

Saturday 7 October 2006

My Father's Days Of Piracy

The New Zealand Herald has story about my father, Denis O'Callahan. It's nearly the fortieth anniversary of the first transmission of Radio Hauraki, New Zealand's first and only pirate radio station, created by my father and a few other like-minded guys in their twenties. At the time the New Zealand Government didn't allow private radio stations, so the idea was to set up a transmitter on a ship in international waters to work around the law. It was a crazy, risky undertaking, full of nautical, engineering, legal and financial challenges, and it succeeded. (After a few years the government caved to popular demand and granted them a land license.) My dad was both the original radio engineer and boat skipper, and of course I'm immensely proud of him.


Comments

Lurker
Now *THAT*'S* "something to tell your grandchildren"!
PS. I don't blame you for the last clause of the last sentence ;D
steve england
lol that's *so* cool :)
David
Hi. Great stuff - check out the pirate Radio Hauraki 40th anniversary website too! Be great if you could add your memory there as well - lots of Hauraki staff read it. Make sure you get along to the staff party too...all details at the website. Cheers, David
Steve Hilliar
I was on the Tiri with your Dad. He is a clever guy.
So are you as I cannot figure how ANYONE can understand Linux! I have tried many distro's but sadly cannot understand the command line.
Anyway good luck to you.