Staying live

I'm trudging through an earthquake-levelled corner lot in Sydenham on a cold, rainy February day, looking for a horse truck.

All I can see at first is a temporary coffee stand and a pop-up dairy, but then I spot the truck tucked away in a corner by a fence. There is no sign of life from the driver's side, so I circle around and see a little footstool leading to an open door. I poke my head in and see a fat bloke in shorts and jandals behind a microphone, discussing Whitney Houston's drug habits.

This, I learn, is Josh "Spanky" Moore, host of RDU98.5FM's Breakfast with Spanky show. RDU's new digital studio, known as the RDUnit, is the back space of a 1986 Mitsubishi Canter, bought from a horse trainer in Kumeu, west of Auckland, for $9000. The "tack room", an adjoining area where trainers would hang their saddles and sleep, has been converted into a DJ booth.

The side panel of the truck, which the horses used to be loaded on and off, can now be used as a stage for live gigs. For anyone interested in music and technology, this is some seriously cool shit.

It's the brainchild of station manager/owner James Meharry, 37, who, along with his partner Karyn South, 36, bought RDU from Canterbury University's student union about six years ago.

The pair's commitment to the station and the local music scene is unquestioned, and the work they have done to keep the station going, inspiring. They could almost be pin-ups for the Christchurch rebuild – young, hard-working, full of hope for the future.

Many businesses around Christchurch were forced to adapt after the February quake. Contemporary jeweller Deb Fallowfield is making wedding rings from the bedroom of her Phillipstown villa after her husband slapped up a dividing wall; Cargo Bar is serving cocktails in jam jars from shipping containers in Lincoln Rd; Out of the Box is selling contemporary furniture from containers in hardly recognisable Sumner; Whare homeware and gift store is operating out of a home garage in Beckenham; an entire container mall has opened in the death row that was Cashel St.

But as for innovation and good old Kiwi know-how, it's hard to look past the team at RDU.

Meharry had been involved with RDU, previously known as Radio U and UFM, and had broadcasted alternative music since 1976 – about 15 years, working as a host and sales manager.

But the station was losing about $80,000 a year for the student union, which asked management to find a way of preserving the broadcast while taking it off the union's books. Meharry and South, a prosecutor with the Crown Solicitor's Office at the time, put in a proposal to take over the station.

"It was a completely ridiculous move, really," says South. "It didn't make any financial sense whatsoever. My parents were like, 'Oh my God, what are you doing?"'

Meharry: "It's not like we had lots of money to put in, but everything we had, we put into it. Failure was not an option."

The Ministry of Culture and Heritage gave them a non-commercial licence, on the condition the station be not-for-profit.

They continued to operate from the university, with around 100 volunteer hosts and one paid announcer (Spanky). Meharry and South were able to draw small salaries. Then, at 12.51pm, February 22 last year, their world was turned upside down.

Meharry: "The building moved around like cardboard. It was massive movement, it was bizarre."

South: "I was going to hop under my desk but was worried it would hit me in the head – we're talking half a metre of lateral movement."

Much of the studio's equipment was damaged, the building was red-stickered, and RDU, champion of the Christchurch alternative music scene, was off air for several weeks.

Not only that, but the station's advertiser base collapsed overnight.

"We had about 80 clients on the books," says South. "We never advertised anyone in malls because we're anti-mall. All our clients were independent retail, small businesses who could only afford inner-city rents. We ended up with three clients that were still in business."

NZ On Air provided a $69,000 emergency grant to tide them over while they developed a business case for resumption of services, and Meharry began thinking of ways of getting back on air. His first solution was every amateur DJ's dream. "We got all the hosts together and took a laptop with a major iTunes playlist and we literally jacked it straight into the transmitter up on Huntsbury Hill. It was basically ghetto broadcasting."

But they needed a long-term plan, and to keep overheads as low as possible. Meharry started scouting around on Trade Me, looking at trucks, minivans – even an old ambulance. Then he spied the horse truck, and thought it would be perfect.

But not everyone was so keen, many of the hosts insisting it would never work.

South: "We were adamant that this was the future that RDU needed. Low overheads was the key. I knew we couldn't keep it running otherwise. When you're trying to rebuild your advertising business from scratch it's about being seen, it's about being available and capturing imagination."

They had the truck transported to Christchurch, but only two weeks later disaster struck.

"I left the little pins out of the bolts on the side door, and it came down while I was driving down Waltham Rd," Meharry says. "It chipped into the ground, there was this massive bang, I lost all control of the steering and it just veered left. Before I knew it we were going through this woman's front fence. Fortunately, the brick cornerstone of her fence slowed us down, so we stopped right on her front door. I was devastated, I'd just crashed RDU's future, but I thought, `'his is not the way this is going to end'."

The cab of the truck was a write-off, but the box was OK. Meharry found another Mitsubishi Canter, and after sorting out insurance, was able to switch cabs, keeping the original box, which he then set about converting into a mobile studio.

"We really worked our arses off to get it going," says South. The station relaunched in August, bands playing on the makeshift stage.

The total fit-out cost $73,000, NZ On Air providing a capital grant of $15,000 and Recover Canterbury also contributing. Rather than asking NZ On Air for a hand-out, Meharry pitched an idea for a major series, following musicians around Christchurch and interviewing them about how the earthquakes have affected their music. It will begin on Wednesday.

Jane Wrightson, NZ On Air's chief executive, describes Meharry and South as "`little battlers. I've just been astonished by them really, because of their guts.

"They came, not with a hand held out, but with a business case, saying `we need to get back on air'. They were thinking about it from different angles, not just `disasters happen, please send money'. That's always really impressive."

Meharry is full of praise for everyone who helped with the six-week fit-out – an engineer from Hornby, the IT guys, internet service provider Snap Internet and many others.

"Doing a full-blown transmission from a truck is quite difficult, and the technology involved ... there's no real test example that any of us had."

The solution they came up with has raised eyebrows in the broadcasting community, as it hasn't been tried before. Meharry's explanation of how the mobile station works is enough to make your head spin.

"We essentially take an analogue performance, whether it be voice or music, and a piece of equipment called a Codec transforms it into a digital signal. We split it up to Huntsbury Hill, it gets received there and then banged back to Snap Internet, they have lines out to the university, which is where our first point of transmission is on top of the library. We've got another Codec at that end which receives that digital data and then does the exact opposite – turns it back into analogue again, bounces it back up to Huntsbury and then sends it out to Christchurch on 98.5."

The truck gets parked in empty lots around the broken city. "It's all about empty lots and getting free power," says South. The studio can be plugged into any wall socket and uses minimal electricity.

Besides the physical makeover, Meharry has had to completely transform the business, retrenching from 10 staff down to five and using cloud computing. There is still an army of volunteer hosts, continually coming and going from the truck.

The couple has found the experience uplifting, and want to continue to be a part of helping Christchurch recover.

"I've got a real fire in my belly for it now," says South. "It [the earthquake] has completely reshuffled the deck – it's a case of start again and there are heaps of opportunities. It's really a lot more interesting living here now."

Meharry: "The old Christchurch I grew up with and really loved has changed. It's gone. I can't get that back. But I'm going to have a whole new Christchurch and a whole new life of experience, which I get to be part of and grow with."

- © Fairfax NZ News