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Western Suburbs Radio Club - ZL1AC |
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Last updated 30 April 2012
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 succeeded 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 inaugural meeting in Auckland of NZART. The club used the call ZL1RK for many years but relinquished 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 also ran a CW only field day site under the call ZL1WI for many years and was successful in winning on a number of occasions. Currently we enter just the 80 metre phone/CW section.
For twelve years the club ran the Waitakere Sprint contests. These contests last for one hour and the object is to make as many contacts with other radio stations within the hour. There are two contests on consecutive 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. The Papakura Club has taken over the running of these contests recently.