Planning for the 2006 International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend started nearly 12 months ago. We found a report in the local newspapers of the intent to build a replica of the original Manukau Heads Lighthouse. This was being undertaken by a group in the Franklin area and John ZL1ALZ contacted them. They were interested in the idea and indicated that permission would be given to operate from the lighthouse. On the 3rd July 2006 the three of us drove out to the heads to look at the building of the lighthouse and progress so far. A photo below shows the earlier stages of construction.

As a safeguard and while we were at the heads, John ZL1ALZ contacted Evan at the Signal Station. Evan leases the property around the heads and was in agreement for us to park on a flat area of that property just along from the light if construction was still underway. This turned out to be the case. Approval was also obtained from the Onehunga Harbour Board and as with all previous years we have kept Ken Belt from Maritime Safety Authority informed of our activities.

On Friday the 18th August 2006, we packed our gear at our different locations. We met on the way to the lighthouse. John ZL1BYZ with the beam, mast and other equipment. John ZL1ALZ with a caravan in tow and packed onboard, his radio station including amps and all our food. I also had a caravan in tow, 3 generators, radios, water and fuel among other items. We were a heavy load on the road that day. The weather the days prior to our weekend was a blessing. It had dried the area out and we were all able to drive to the flat area under our own steam. We established our radio station on high ground just to the eastern side of the Manukau Heads Lighthouse. We had planned to operate from the area along side the new lighthouse but construction was not completed and workmen needed access to the site and this was as close as we could get and be clear of the construction site. The site was in a paddock just along from the lighthouse on some level ground. The area at the southern heads is all sand hills. The erosion had taken the two previous lights and there is a very steep bank some 100m or so down to the entrance to the Manukau Harbour. With all the erosion in the area, you can easily see how the earlier lighthouses had toppled into the tide. We were advised that the new lighthouse has foundation legs 17 meters long into the sand. If you were to look at the area you would agree that erosion would win out in the end though!

We worked from the 2 small caravans. One station comprised a Kenwood TS870, Kenwood TL922 and a triband beam at 15m or so. This was our 20m station. From the other caravan, we set up our 80m, 40m and 30m station. This station comprised a Kenwood TS440SAT and a Heathkit SB200 amp. The aerials were all dipoles. These worked very well it was just a coax problem we experienced. We also had packet running and a VHF / UHF radio. As for propagation, we made 1409 contacts. The summary of contacts is shown below.

Log summary:
Total 1409 QSOs.
414 CW.
993 Phone.
20m 926.
30m 26.
40m 331.
80m 100.
2m 10.
70cm 6.
Lighthouse QSOs 63.
DXCC.
Mixed 68.
PH 54.
CW 40.

We worked into the UK and Europe via the North Pole. Irrespective of the K Index being as low as 6 or 7, we had reports from DX stations that our signal was 59 plus and the only DX station on the band! John ZL1BYZ worked most of the 30, 40 and 80m contacts and there were a steady flow till well into the small hours of the morning on both Saturday and Sunday nights. This seems to confirm the fact that if you call CQ enough, you will get a reply. Consider the activity we hear on the bands during a major contest. The stations are there but many seem to be watching lists on their computers for notice of an interesting contact. We believe each time we were spotted on the cluster our QSO rate increased for a short time. Thankfully, we were spotted many times. I see from some of the reports that have now become available from the ILLW that many stations reported poor conditions which resulted in poor results. This was not the case for us with contacts into 68 countries. We worked Saturday and Sunday evenings through till after 2am local because there were stations to be worked. Our operation was both SSB and CW and both Johns did well in completing the 414 CW QSO’s. During the weekend, we took time to visit the construction site and take many photos of the lighthouse as it was then. The lantern dome will be mounted over the next week or so and final finishing off will be done. It’s going to look great. Just by the lighthouse is the stump of an old tree. It is being carved, initially with a chain saw and it will also be interesting to see how that turns out. There is a public parking area at the base of the hill and it’s just a short walk to the lighthouse. John ZL1BYZ took early morning walks and took many pics with his camera. I took some on the way back from a petrol collection on Sunday morning. Gee those amps get through some gas! This was the first time we have been able to run Amps on 20m and 40m simultaneously without interaction between the stations. Initially we did have very bad interference on 40m from the 20m station , grounding all the equipment did reduce it marginally. Resigning our selves to this we continued setting up, marking and tidying the coaxes , only to fine the interference had gone never to be heard again all weekend. What did we do? We will never really know. Our guess was, just by moving the 80m coax away from the 40m coax somehow fixed things. The 80m dipole was directly under the 20m beam and the coax was not connected to a rig at the time.
There were 377 stations registered as being set up at lighthouses around the world. There were probably quite a lot more on the day. The count from New Zealand of 6 was not our highest number but showed good participation and Australia’s total was up this year. For a list of the 377 stations that had registered for the ILLW see… http://illw.net/2006_list.htm The photos are pretty much self-explanatory and more will be added to the ZL6LH web site over the next week or so. With 3 digital cameras there, we have a huge number to sort through.It was very pleasing to have Jack ZL1IJ, Cliff ZL1RP and Judy visit us during the weekend..

Well, where to in 2007? Nothing decided yet but we will keep you advised.

More pics in our September Newsletter.... see http://www.qsl.net/zl1vk/2006September.pdf