Lyndsay Rackley

Lyndsay Arthur Rackley was born on 26 March 1944. Radio was his escape as a boy. In a 2021 interview with RNZ's Eyewitness programme he remembered falling asleep with headphones on, listening to the YA and ZB stations and serials such as Life with Dexter.

In 1961, aged 17, he joined the Otago Radio Association, the volunteer organisation that ran Radio Dunedin, and began announcing on the station, then known as 4XD. A photograph from the Association's 40th birthday party in October 1962 shows him aged 18.

Radio Dunedin is the oldest radio station in New Zealand. It grew out of the first radio transmissions in the country, made by Professor Robert Jack and his students at the University of Otago in November 1921, and first went to air in October 1922, five weeks before the BBC.

Rackley began his professional career at 4XO, which opened in November 1971 as the first commercial radio station in the South Island. Alongside his paid work he stayed closely involved with the Otago Radio Association. For more than thirty years he arranged the rosters of volunteer announcers who presented programmes in the Association's slots on Radio Dunedin, and he worked as an afternoon announcer until 2015. He became the Association's voluntary secretary in 1985 and from 2015 was again a volunteer announcer. In later years he also managed the station's volunteers and helped with technical problems.

He lived through some of the station's most dramatic moments, including the night a disgruntled schoolboy burned down the wooden shed housing its transmitter, taking Radio Dunedin off the air for a week until the national broadcaster helped restore it. Radio Dunedin credited him with helping turn the station into a successful commercial operation.

In the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours he was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for services to broadcasting. He was presented with the medal at an investiture at Larnach Castle, Dunedin, on 27 September 2019.

Rackley was married to Helen, born Croft. They had two children, Mark and Shelley, and he was a grandfather to Ben, Jahne, Michael, Anna and Marlena and a great-grandfather to Oakley, Luca and Felix. His devotion to the station was a family joke: "My wife often says, 'you're married to the radio'. But I told her I was in radio long before I met her," he told RNZ in 2021.

Lyndsay Rackley died peacefully on 20 October 2026, aged 82. No cause of death was made public. His family's death notice thanked the Sisters and carers of Sacred Heart Home and Hospital for their care of him.

Radio Dunedin announced his death on social media, describing him as "a true legend of radio" and adding: "Rest in peace Lyndsay, you will be missed by both colleagues (past and present), and many listeners to whom you were their friend." The news was reported by RNZ and the Otago Daily Times on 21 October 2026.

A memorial service was arranged for 2pm on Tuesday 27 October 2026 at the Hope and Sons chapel on Andersons Bay Road, Dunedin, with donations in lieu of flowers to the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Rackley's association with Radio Dunedin lasted about 65 years, a span that took in most of the station's modern history. He bridged the volunteer tradition of the Otago Radio Association and the commercial radio era that began in the South Island with 4XO in 1971, and for decades he kept the station's volunteer presenters on air. His Queen's Service Medal recognised that long service, and Radio Dunedin's tribute summed up the affection in which listeners held him.