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Hi all,
Further to the bulletin from Steve VE7SL, I
can confirm that planning is well under way for attempting DX QSOs from ZM2E at
Quartz Hill with VA7LF and R6L. We are catering for 4, 5 and 6
April.
The ZL night begins with trying to work VA7LF,
between ZL sunset at nominally 0602 UTC and VE7 sunrise at nominally 1350
UTC. Then comes RU6 sunset at nominally 1552 UTC and the dark path ends
with ZL sunrise at 1844 UTC. So operationally is a "long night" from a
ZM2E point of view.
Frequencies for working VA7LF are 137.7890/137.7886
kHz, and we will start with beacon testing with regular 10 or 15 minute overs
with Z or V at FSK90 till we confirm propagation is good enough to go to QSO
mode and send a full call sign. We are still finalising our preferences
for beacon mode initial transmission so it is not possible to give an outline of
which station will be on at a given time.
Frequencies for working R6L are 137.7886/137.7882
kHz (0.4 Hz lower that for VA7LF to avoid QRM lines in RU6).
For those who were unaware of alternative
developments at Quartz Hill, there is now a very uncertain future for radio
activities as resource consent has been granted for a West Wind turbine
farm, the biggest planned in New Zealand, with 70 turbines and 3 MW per
turbine (yes, the radio club can confirm there is a lot of wind at ZL6QH,
antenna maintenance is quite a challenge). The wind farm plans have
turbines on ridge lines over a wide area, but includes all of the Quartz Hill
site, consequently antennas would need to be removed to facilitate building the
wind farm. Appeals to resource consent have yet to be heard but there is
known to be a lot of supporters for the wind farm project. For those
interested in the wind farm development, a link is:
We happen to have experienced relatively poor
propagation at the few times selected for LF DX attempts over the last
year, so there is a certain anxiety at ZM2E as to whether we can do better
this coming week, as we are likely running out of opportunites at Quartz
Hill.
73, Bob ZL2CA
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