Western Suburbs Radio Club - ZL1AC A Brief Club History

Last updated 20 April 2004

Western Suburbs Radio Club is one of the oldest clubs in the country. It was originally formed in 1931 as the New Lynn Radio Group. In 1948 this group was succeded by the Auckland West Branch and finally renamed Western Suburbs Radio Club. The New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters (NZART) was formed in 1926 so the club is almost as old as the association.

Western Suburbs Radio Club has the call of ZL1AC. This call was originally held by Len Spackman and was taken up by the club in 1997 when Len passed on. Len was at the inaugrual meeting in Auckland of NZART. The club used the call ZL1RK for many years but relenquished this when ZL1AC became available.

The club has always been active in national events and under the call ZL1RK won the national field day contest on a number of occasions. Recently the lack of proficient CW (morse code) operators has left us trying. The club generally runs a CW only field day site under the call ZL1WI and this has been successful in winning on a number of occasions.

For the last twelve years the club has run the Waitakere Sprint contests. These contest last for one hour and the object is to make as many contacts with other radio stations within the hour. There are two contest on consective Saturdays. One being for voice and the other for CW. This contest has proved to be one of the most popular in Australia and New Zealand.