Well, again this year we had the short trip to
the Manukau Heads Lighthouse.
While it was thought that we would make this our home
base, we
had not intended for the return visit to immediately
follow our initial visit.
We had planned a trip south to Baring Head, out of Wellington
but the Nissan Civilian bus I had imported arrived with gearbox trouble
and late. So
late that there was not sufficient time for the vehicle
to be complied and
repaired. Baring Head is our intended Lighthouse for
2008 now and with
all the planning completed this year, it will just be
a couple of calls prior to
the 2008 ILLW.
Back to 2007, on the Wednesday prior to the ILLW I was
advised that the
bus was not going to be repaired in time for a trip south.
Two phone calls
to the local Courier Newspapers secured the 2 caravans.
A call to Evan at
the signal station and all was in place.
On the Friday morning, I met John ZL1ALZ, and we collected
the 2 caravans.
On the way out we called into the clubrooms to collect
poles, pegs
and the club generator. When we collected the caravans,
one had an awning
last year but it was not there this time. We needed somewhere
for a
kitchen and store the surplus equipment, so John continued
on to Pokeno
to collect his tent. The mast, aerial beam and vertical
were already on the
way to the Heads from Paerata on John ZL1BYZ's ute. I
waited at Waiuku
for John to return from Pokeno and we continued the trip
to the heads arriving just after 1.00 pm.
The beam was already assembled sitting on the ground and
the ropes run
out for the guys. The 4x4 I had was used to tow the caravans
up onto the
site. John had used his chains to get his ute there.
John had also bought an
electric fence and that was set up keeping Evan’s stock
out of the area. It
was now time to put the mast and beam up. After doing
this a number of
years now we find it easier to complete this task. One
thing we had again
overlooked was the direction of the beam, was it reflector
down or up?
Well, we guessed wrong, and for the weekend North was
South and East
was West. Not a major problem except that when we needed
to flick from
North West to North East we had to go the long way round.
One of the additions we had this year were screw pegs,
the type the power
boards use for guying poles. The ones I took out were
the double auger type as we were on very sandy soil at the heads. These
proved themselves over the weekend in the very high winds we experienced.
We had the mast up and guyed using 3 of the screw anchors and a strainer
fence post. Next job was to place the caravans in a V formation into the
wind. This done, we erected the tent inside the V. Setting up the radio
stations was next and into one caravan went a Kenwood TS440SAT, a Heathkit
SB200 Amp, MFJ Tuner and a laptop for logging. In the other caravan we
set up a Kenwood TS870, Kenwood TL922 Amp, MFJ tuner and another laptop
for logging. We had spare everything but only needed another laptop, RF
getting into one this year when it was ok last year, who knows why!
We gave ourselves a head start for the weekend by starting
Friday afternoon
but very quickly realised that we were not in for the
same action we had experienced one year earlier. If last year the sunspot
cycle was at a low, this year it was in free fall. John ZL1BYZ had said
that conditions had taken a turn for the worst over the previous 4 or 5
months. I made a contact with a ZL or VK who is commercially involved with
HF communications of one sort or another and he reported that conditions
over the past 3 or 4 months had taken a dramatic downturn and wished us
luck for the weekend. Well things were different for us over the weekend
that's for sure. Apart from propagation, we experienced some very high
winds. High enough that on the Saturday late afternoon, the generator tent
blew apart and the caravans rocked so much that they banged together at
times. We moved our vehicles onto the windward side of the caravans and
tent to offer some sort of windbreak. Had we not done that, the tent may
have headed off over the Manukau towards the city.
Conditions were not the best for DX or at least, very
different to those we experienced one year earlier. In the afternoons on
20m phone, there were good contacts to be had into the US but very very
few into Europe. 20m CW was different, and while John worked that in the
mornings, he was able to make a number of good contacts into both the US
and Europe. John ZL1BYZ was at home in the other caravan working mainly
from his 40m vertical. John worked 40m and 30m from that vertical with
very good results. Set on a slight rise the vertical has been made from
a few pieces of aluminum from an old beam, sitting on an empty wine bottle
with a dozen earth radials lying on the ground. Very simple construction
and very easy to erect but performed faultlessly, and accepts a bit of
RF to boot. We also had an 80/40m inverted 'V' and that worked well for
local and VK contacts. The tri-band beam used on the mast worked well again
this year all be it that we only used it on 20m. The wind on Saturday afternoon
turned the beam against the motor but luckily did not slip in the mounting
bracket. At that time we did have the situation where John was working
into the US but the wind had blown the beam around toward the South, which
had us confused for a while. There were a few runs on 20m phone and also
on CW but none for any great length of time. In the other caravan, John
had been going steadily for a few hours on end and it was that steady flow
of contacts that added to our total QSO count of 1144.
The area we work from is in a paddock adjacent to the
lighthouse. The lighthouse, completed late 2007 is a replica of the original
lighthouse that was
situated just in front of the signal station. The picture
shows the original
lighthouse and the replica. Foundations are a major difference
with the current ones sunk some 17m into the sandy soil whereas the original
may not
have been as deep, hence its demise and finally succumbing
to erosion. A
nice walkway now surrounds the lighthouse and there is
a wrap-a-round picture of the view with points of interest noted. There
is still work being done in the area with stairs leading up to the lighthouse
from the car park area.
There is also a walkway to the observation deck that
overlooks the signal station, heads and offers a spectacular view of the
lighthouse with the Manukau Harbour in the background. This work may be
ongoing as it is all volunteer work involved and these things can take
time.
Next year, Baring Head. We had done all the spadework
to get that trip organised for this year but at the last minute those plans
went up in smoke. We will be heading off there in 2008 and we intend to
be operating with personal callsigns on the trip there and back. We will
also have plenty of time to sort out operating positions within the confines
of a 7m bus.
Statistics
QSOs 1144, CW 356, SSB 789
VKs 426,
Ks 434,
ZLs 95’
EU and others 189
Lighthouse stations 53.
Band breakdown,
20m 701,
40m 350,
30m 14,
80m 79.
