Holiday and Dx-pedition
(ZK1RS - 1983, 1989, and 1992). It is a great place to return to!
Late in 2004 I had some airmiles to use up, so I managed to fit in a 3 day break to Rarotonga
on one of my periodic trips back to NZ from working in some "funny places". It was great
to catch up with Victor again after all those years and the trip overall was excellent ...
but, of course, far too short. My assignment in Darfur and Sudan was coming to a close
and I was looking forward to a good long holiday after the strain of that busy situation ...
Rarotonga and spend 2 weeks on the idilic Aitutaki atoll. Of course, ham radio was not
forgotten and I decided to activate ZK1(sc) on 2M EME! Here is the picture story ...
entrance and got up close to the Red Tailed Terns that were nesting on a deserted sand key.
the Cook Islands. It was also the setting for a movie called "The Silent One" which was
a film about a deaf kid who was a bit of a loner, and his relationship with sea turtles.
overlooking the lagoon to maximise ground gain from the salt water. It was walking
distance to the main center of Avarua, so it was a very convenient location.
the custom wound HT transformer that was a veteran of operations in ZL, ZL8, and YA in my
HB DX-pedition Amp, finally "let the smoke out". Fortunately I could get a backup PA (Tokyo
Hi-Power 200W) sent from ZL within a few days. A small GPS and NMEA Time utility kept
the PC clock accurate as required for the digital EME communications mode used (JT65b).
thanks to the sensitivity of the exceptional weak signal digital software, WSJT. Here is the tail
end of a QSO with VK7MO. The waterfall display clearly showing the digital tones for "73".