The University of Otago yesterday withdrew from sale the transmitter used by Prof Robert Jack to broadcast New Zealand's first voice and music radio programme 89 years ago.
The decision allayed fears the equipment could leave Dunedin or be sold to an overseas buyer.
The radio transmitter and associated generator will be returned to the university physics department and will then be loaned, long-term, to the Otago Settlers Museum.
About 200 other pieces of scientific equipment, some about a century old, and also owned by the department, will be auctioned by Hayward's Auction House on June 30.
Prof Jack, who died in 1957, and his physics team made New Zealand's first radio broadcast of voice and music on Saturday, November 17, 1921.
The move to sell it has been criticised in several letters to the Otago Daily Times.
Dunedin broadcaster and historian Jim Sullivan said yesterday's outcome was the "best thing that could have happened".
Settlers museum director Linda Wigley was "thrilled" the transmitter would be displayed at the museum.
It would have been a "catastrophe" if the gear had been lost to Dunedin, she said.
Head of the department of physics Prof Rob Ballagh said he had decided to withdraw Prof Jack's equipment from sale, after further reflection.
He was "delighted" the museum had agreed to safeguard the equipment long term.
