About RPH Print Radio

RPH Print Radio

RPH Print Radio (callsign 1RPH) is Canberra's radio reading service, broadcasting on 1125 kHz AM to the ACT and surrounding New South Wales. A volunteer-staffed community station and member of the national RPH Australia network, it turns print into sound — reading newspapers, magazines, books and other printed material to air for the estimated 10-plus per cent of the population who are, for any reason, unable to access printed material. Its catchphrases are "Your information station" and "Turning print into sound."

Overview

Radio 1RPH broadcasts on 1125 kHz AM at 2,000 watts (transmitter at 35.21444°S 149.11667°E) to Canberra RA2, with FM translators at 89.5 MHz in Wagga Wagga and 99.5 MHz in Junee, a DAB+ service in Canberra, and national distribution via the VAST satellite platform (radio channel 632). The format is a radio reading service: live and pre-recorded readings of newspapers, magazines, books and specialist printed material, supplemented by information programming.

The station serves all of the ACT and surrounding NSW including Queanbeyan, Yass and Michelago, with the Wagga and Junee repeaters extending the service into the Riverina. It is owned by Print Handicapped Radio of ACT Inc. and licensed by the ACMA as a community broadcasting service.

History

The RPH movement: 1975–1990

The radio reading service model began in Australia in 1975 on Melbourne's 3ZZ, under the banner "Radio for the Print Handicapped." On 23 July 1978 the federal Minister for Post and Telecommunications announced the establishment of a special radio communications service for blind people and others with reading difficulties, and the federal government began direct funding with a $250,000 grant in the 1981–82 budget. Initially using marine-band frequencies (today's extended AM broadcast band), stations went to air in Hobart (7RPH, June 1982), Melbourne (3RPH, December 1982), Sydney, and by 1984–85 in Brisbane and Canberra. After a further review, the specialised stations transferred to normal broadcast-band frequencies in 1990 and 1991. In December 2013 all RPH Australia network stations joined the VAST satellite platform.

1RPH in Canberra

The Canberra service dates to the mid-1980s expansion of the network — the station celebrated its 30th birthday in June 2015, with federal MP Gai Brodtmann marking the occasion in the House of Representatives. Brodtmann told parliament that an estimated 10 per cent of the Canberra region was print handicapped — about 30,000 people — and paid tribute to the volunteers who read the newspapers and books and staffed the front desk, naming Lorraine Lister, Robert Altimore, Ellen Mitchell, Janice Winter, Janelle Caiger, Sandra Purser and Karen Melton among those without whom the station's day-to-day running would be very challenging. A later parliamentary tribute put the figure at 15 per cent of the population with some form of reading difficulty, and noted the station relied on more than 100 dedicated volunteers providing over 270 hours every week — several of them serving for more than 20 years.

In its early years 1RPH broadcast just outside the AM band on 1620 kHz, suffering little interference — and was reportedly heard as far away as the United States. The move to 1125 kHz brought it into the standard broadcast band alongside Canberra's other AM stations. The station's facilities reflect its production-heavy mission: two on-air studios with 16-channel broadcast mixers drawing on computer, CD, satellite, tape-recorder, turntable, outside-broadcast-line and telephone-radio sources, a digital post-production studio, a voice-only studio, and CD-R, tape and recorded-music libraries supporting the hundreds of hours of readings produced each week. Federal MP Gai Brodtmann, who visited the station twice after its 30th birthday celebrations, told parliament she had enjoyed talking with the volunteers at work — a window onto the daily labour of turning print into sound that has sustained the service for four decades.

The station's volunteer base has been its constant: more than 100 dedicated volunteers providing over 270 hours of content every week, with several volunteers serving for more than 20 years — a continuity honoured in the station's annual reports, whose memorial tributes record the decades-long service of its readers. The 2024 annual report memorialised figures including Barbara Blackman — a pioneer and founder of the Radio for the Print Handicapped movement in Australia, instrumental in establishing Sydney's 2RPH, who became an active 1RPH participant after moving to Canberra, granting the station permission to record and broadcast her book Glass after Glass — and Andrew Eagles, a long-serving Christian Perspectives team member and news reader.

Programming and Content

1RPH's schedule is built around readings. A typical weekday has included weather, television and program guides from 6:15 am, religious programming from 6:30, live readings from the morning newspapers from 7 to 9 am, pre-produced specialised programming drawn from printed resources through the late morning, a BBC World Service cross in the early afternoon, a repeat of the morning's Canberra Times readings at 3 pm, and further specialist programming into the evening. Newspapers, magazines, books and other printed material are read to air by volunteer readers.

The audience the service is designed for is broad: people who are blind or vision impaired, who have had strokes, who are quadriplegic or paraplegic, who live with cerebral palsy, arthritis, multiple sclerosis or dyslexia, who have trouble reading English or never learnt to read. Parliamentary tributes have put the print-handicapped population at 10 to 15 per cent of the Canberra region — around 30,000 people — for whom the station provides what MPs have called an invaluable, necessary service.

Coverage and Audience

The 1125 kHz AM signal covers the ACT and nearby NSW districts, with the 89.5 MHz Wagga Wagga and 99.5 MHz Junee FM translators extending the service into the Riverina — the Junee service retransmitted by the Junee Shire Council — plus DAB+ in Canberra, VAST satellite nationally, and internet streaming. The audience is the print-handicapped community and their families and carers — a significant but often invisible population whose daily information needs the station exists to meet. For many listeners, the morning newspaper readings are the day's first news and the station's voice a daily companion: the parliamentary tributes speak of a service that is not merely useful but, in the words of one MP, necessary and invaluable.

Ownership

Radio 1RPH is owned by Print Handicapped Radio of ACT Inc., a not-for-profit incorporated association, and licensed by the ACMA as a community broadcasting service. It is a member of the RPH Australia network, the national peak body for radio reading services — a network spanning 1RPH Canberra, 2RPH Sydney, 4RPH Brisbane, Vision Australia Radio (3RPH) Melbourne, 5RPH Adelaide, 6RPH Perth and Print Radio Tasmania (7RPH) — with material also heard on a small number of non-network community stations and on New Zealand's Radio Reading Service. The station is volunteer-staffed and funded through memberships, donations, grants and fundraising.

Digital Presence

The station's website at radio1rph.org.au — the address published by the RPH network — hosts the internet stream, program guides and podcasts, with station podcasts current to 2026. The VAST satellite carriage (radio channel 632) gives the service national reach beyond its terrestrial footprint. The digital and satellite platforms extend the "turning print into sound" mission to print-handicapped listeners anywhere in Australia with a satellite receiver or internet connection — a national footprint for a volunteer-powered Canberra community station that has turned print into sound for four decades.