The lighthouse at Portland Island, off the Mahia Peninsula would have been just one of these instances. Land was purchased in 1875 for the light on the southern tip of Portland Island and the light, one of the earliest in New Zealand, was first lit on the 28th of February 1878. This lighthouse warned shipping from that day right through till decommissioned in 1958. The replacement light (beacon) on a steel tower was built in 1955 and automated in 1982. The Portland Lighthouse was moved to Wairoa in 1961.

Wairoa and the history from the area goes back some 700 years with the arrival of the first Maori and their settlements around Mahia and on the banks of the Wairoa River. Europeans arrived in the 1820's and following these flax traders came the whalers. Trading in the area was by boat up and down the Wairoa river to the ships in the bay. Many traders had their own wharves along the river banks, much like the many local white-baiters have their small stands jutting out into the river today.

International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend, August 20 / 21 this year had us off on a trip the Hawkes Bay area on the eastern coast of the North Island. Wairoa was our destination for the ILLW where we positioned ourselves alongside the Portland Island Lighthouse. Now a museum lighthouse it is located on the banks of the Wairoa River in the town or Wairoa. This year there were again just the 3 of us as Dave ZL1AMN was unable to participate. The team of John ZL1ALZ, John ZL1BYZ and David ZL1DK planned the trip over the past months and on the Friday at 5.10am we started making tracks South from Paerata.

Transport was in a 7 meter Nissan Civilian bus. Stripped of its seats, there was enough room for all our equipment and sleeping also. We collected John ZL1ALZ from Pokeno and headed off down to Taupo and then Napier and back up to Wairoa. We had taken an earlier trip for a recce and drove down via Rotorua and Lake Waikeremoana. A trip not to be missed and one that you don't do twice! Twisting roads with sharp corners and little gravel on the clay. Sort of okay in a car but not a bus. The weather was brilliant all weekend. Blue sky with little if any breeze. Most of our gear was stored in crates inside the bus but the portable mast that John ZL1BYZ had built me and the beam were carried on the roof of the bus. Photos on the clubs web site will show more of the mast and the design of this is much the same as the 2 that we have used in the past for National Field Day. We had been given permission to park the bus on the grassed park area beside the Lighthouse and we also had the use of 240V from the Lighthouse. The Council and the Museum Curator were very helpful in these matters. 

On arrival, we started to unpack some gear and get the aerial systems up and running. The portable mast is 2 square section steel poles 8 meters long and nested. There is a rotator and mount that sides into the inner pole and the beam attached to that. The whole lot pivots on a frame attached to the back of the bus. Under the rear of the bus there is a 4x4 style electric winch. The pole is slid back overhanging the bus and locked into the pivot. The winch then moves the mast and beam into a vertical position. The winch then is connected to the inner pole by another cable and through a pulley or 2, the inner pole is extended another 6.5 meters. Two extended poles and the rotator mounts has the beam at around 15.5 meters. Not too bad for a portable arrangement! We have a trapped 80/40 dipole attached to a halyard just under the beam and another halyard is used for the 30m dipole. This arrangement did cause some inter-mod trouble but we were able to work around that most of the time. Had this not been the case, we would have made many more contacts. The mast is guyed and the 8m point and again at the top of the upper pole. We used 4 guys at each of these points but would have been happy with just 3 at each point had we not been around the public. Cars moving around the area also saw us take the added precaution of marking each of the guys with white plastic bags. Another consideration that we had not had in the past was the general area that we occupy. This year we took the trouble to put things back into the crates that were stacked alongside the bus and covered with a blue cover.

 John ZL1ALZ provided the radio station setup inside the bus. There was the 10/15 and 20m station that was a Kenwood TS870, an MFJ tuner and a Kenwood TL922 amp. The rotator control completed that station. At the other end of the table was the Kenwood TS440SAT for the 30m CW and 80/40m contacts. Also carried but not contributing much to the total contact tally was a Kenwood TR931 VHF/UHF radio. All the equipment worked well and there was no failure during the weekend of any equipment. 

Conditions were not as good as we had experienced in previous years but we were still able to keep the log entries ticking over. We set ourselves, what John ZL1BYZ called a Q's for K's total. QSO's to equal the Km's travelled. One way was 1.5Km short of 500 so we are looking for 1000 contacts in round terms. We don't carry credits forward from previous years! The bands, especially 20m suffered from QSB where there were strange fade portions during many of the QSO's. This being during the exchange of callsigns. As John said, when you ask for the suffix, why give our call again, we know who we are, and like Murphy's law, the fade strikes again on the suffix. This happened time after time. John ZL1BYZ spent a good part of his weekend on 30m CW and had that log moving along very well at times. We all took turns operating and like the pasts trips we all had our fair share of operating. Band conditions as they were saw the CW contacts outweigh the SSB total. Not that there is a competition there but CW was more useable than SSB for considerable periods during the weekend. Monday morning arrived and we were still short of that target of 1000 contacts. Slowly we clawed towards it, needing 40 then 30 then 20 and it was by both Johns on 20m CW and 30m CW that not only did we reach that target but we passed it and finally recorded 1028 contacts for the trip. These contacts made with other Amateur operators in some 63 Countries around the world. Quite creditable achievements from a portable station though one that most any operator would be pleased to have set up at home also!

There were many highlights to our weekend. Being in the public eye more than ever before we needed to present our hobby and ourselves in a good light. As such, we had produced a small folded A4 pamphlet to hand out to those interested. This showed briefly what Amateur Radio was, how to become an Amateur Radio operator and a link to both NZART's home page on the Internet and the NZ Branch contact details from our ZL1VK site. The inside pages showed the past 7 years activity from our ZL6LH team and our earlier QSL cards. Many locals called in to see what was going on and we also engaged a number in conversation as they walked past the area. We also had the company of early morning white-baiters, many whom went home hungry! We had visits from Arnie ZL1CAX and Rick ZL2RIC. The girls from the Wairoa Information Centre called in to see our station. The Information Centre and the Wairoa Museum had notices up of our activity which they had been interested in during our earlier recce trip. A reporter from the local Wairoa Star newspaper also called in for some photos and notes on our weekend and the hobby in general. A lady from the local Internet shop came in and was very interested to see in action the radio / computer interface we were operating. She was up to speed in these areas and had a good understanding when we talked of DX Clusters and the like. We had one couple who were probably higher than our beam. They asked if we contacted any UFO's. I offered to call one for them to take them home! The one visitor that we may all remember for some time was a girl, around 14 or 15 years old. In town with the family for the Saturday nite takeaways, they all came over to see what we were doing. The expression on her face when she saw both Johns sending and receiving morse was alone worth the weekend trip. A beaming smile and here eyes lit up, she had recently made a morse key at school during a free period. Two students choose a morse key to build and had played with them on buzzers. Now she had seen them used in real life. She was really thrilled to see that. Details have been given to the local Hams for follow up there. She would have been from the Wairoa College.

Well it was over all too quick. Monday morning had passed, we had bettered our 1000 target and it was time now to unpack and return to home. The gear was removed from the bus, the mast lowered and bean dismantled. The gear repacked into the bus with plenty of room for John ZL1ALZ to relax in the back. John ZL1BYZ and I did the driving. I feel we all had a great time, Wairoa, to us, was a beaut place and all the locals we met were interested in our activity. Our meals over the weekend were all pre-cooked by John ZL1ALZ's wife and just required re-heating, a situation we are all very grateful for.

2006, not far off so we need to start the planning procedures again.
David for the ZL6LH team.