THE STATION TODAY AND YESTERDAY

BACKGROUND HISTORY
TO
ZL3MA
The history of ZL3MA for me goes back to 1967, when I first held the call sign allocated second to the original holder. This was the third call sign I held, as was customary of the licensing authority (New Zealand Post Office) Radio Division to allocate or change the call sign if the holder changed districts. The previous call sign I had was ZL2QJ for 2 years second to the late Bill Kirkland original holder and previous to that the call sign of ZL3MH which was my original call sign, second to the late George Pritchard (World famous for the design of the ZL SPECIAL BEAM). George went on to hold ZL2OQ in New Plymouth in the North Island until his passing some years later.

Samuel F. B. Morse
1791-1872
Original double current key of the late
Athol Gledhill
ZL3FZ
Tribute to
Arthur (ZL3JD) & Athol (ZL3FZ)
" Both CW A1 OP's "

Most assistance for passing the morse test I am indebted to two old timers at that time the late Arthur Lyes ZL3JD and the late Athol Gledhill ZL3FZ for without their tuition, patients and encouragement I wonder if I would have passed the tests so easily. The requirements for privilege to 160M. 80M. 6M. and above at that time was 12 wpm. After 12 months probation on these bands, a further morse test at 15 wpm at 100% send and receive, a station inspection, and 5 frequencies read on 40 and 80 meters to within 1Khz ("Had to borrow Art's BC221 the frequency meter of the day") gave the licensee privilege to our top class known as an H.F. PERMIT. This allowed us to 40M. 20M. 15M. 10M. bands with all mode privilege. At this time AM was still quite in popular though there was starting to get quite rapid moves to the (DUCK TALK MODE) SSB. There were lots building and experimenting with filter type, phasing type and DSB. There was not much selection commercial wise and was quite expensive to the young ham. The first transmitter was a small home built 6AG7 - 6AG7 - 6L6 10 watts input which was derived from a power supply salvaged from an old broadcast receiver. The one and only xtal 3.506.5 was with the kind gesture of the above ZL3JD. As time went by joined the local branch of N.Z.A.R.T. and attended what were known to us all as junk sales (and a lot of the purchases were nothing more) I started to build other transmitters. I was fortunate to upgrade at the end of the first year and most of my activity was CW. This was the mode I used most until I started into FSK around 1966-67 using old machines by Creed Model 7B's then to 54's and 75's surplus to N.Z. Post Office. These machines were to be used until into the mid-late 70's when the smell of burnt carbon brushes and oil, rolls of paper and perforated tape (as it was in the RTTY station of the day) stood by to the glass tube monitor and the silicon chip which started to get it's way into the ham shacks quite rapidly. (The computer age was emerging upon us). The fun of making memory out of perforated tapes for artwork, and buffers was made so much easier with editors that stored it all to magnetic tape and later disk. This era saw what was to be all sorts of magic appear I built up my first SSB exciter (phasing type) in the mid 1960's designed by well known Lester Earnshaw ZL1AAX and to become KB7FA.. The old AM CW transmitter still was in service for AM CW and FSK it was a line of 6AG7's oscillator and multipliers to the triode 809 and to the final triodes PP 812's link coupled and the audio version 811a's were used to anode modulate them with. The mid-late 70's were really the time the station started to make changes the advent of computers, a commercial Kenwood was added, shift of QTH to a 12 acre rural lot saw towers over 100ft. appeared on the horizon with stacked yagi's on 20M. 15M. 10M. full size rotary quad on 40M., Vee beams on 75 and top band, full dipole on 168kHz., higher powered amplifiers, coming of amtor, and then packet. The newer data modes B&W SSTV were coming and then they really started to emerge in the late 80's and into the 90's where we are today. Today the station runs mainly SSTV, the PACTORS, CLOVER, GTOR

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ZL3MA's SHACK around 1975-76

Note the old OSI C1P computer to the left of the picture, no HDD or even a floppy drive at this time 1976 it presented it's operator with a whole 8k of ram at 1 Mhz., booted from an E-PROM and the programs were loaded from magnetic tape. This unit was shortly replaced by the C4PMF which had a lot more development no HDD but did have a 360k floppy to load from but still booted from the E-Prom in Sinmon or Segmon, and also sported a whole 48k of RAM and it raced along at 2 Mhz. The monitor was and old B&W T.V. feeding straight into the video amp. The luxury of color was coming. Todays standard of speeds and quality of video and standard memory today that is far greater than total HDD storage until recent times makes one wonder what is to come. Also seen to the right of the desk is the old TR3 from DRAKE (that rig is still here and still fires if one can tolerate the drift on todays standard)

Station mid to late 60's

To the right of the picture on your right stands the old rack and panel AM CW FSK crystal controled with the 812 R.F. 811a AUDIO combination, the blue glowing mercury vapour 866's x4 in all was a spectical in all it's time. The Creed "Model 54" on the left was a pride place at this time as was still a currently used model in N.Z. Government services. This was the days when the magnets clattered and the relays clunked with an echo in the metal cabnets. The "Model 54's" were a great inprovement to the older "Model 7b's" of Creed coming out of service at this time. These were all mechanically goverened at 50 baud which was the universal commercial speed but the HAMS had it a little different at 45.45 baud so with a little careful screwing out of the governors one was able to achieve the correct speed. The 54 which I had used was fitted with a perforator which meant one was able to punch out tape on a local loop or on an inccoming signal as it was printing out. On the near side of the 54 can be seen what appears to be part of but in fact is a seperate unit the tape reader also from Creed which was a unit which the perforated tape was run through heads with 5 senseing needles determining open or closed mark and space to read the tape. Unfortunately I have none of this tape now as all the mechanical gear, role paper and tape was desposed of when it couldn't be given away in HAM circles so mine finished in a Railway museum as these machines were used in the New Zealand Railways. At the end of the mechanical days for me I still favored the Model 54 though had the model 75 in use but it always seemed as though it was going to fly to pieces and the noise was something else with inadiquit isulation for noise and the very high reving motor was nothing to help, how the ones in a quiet office in commercial use put up with the noise I would never know comparing it with the 54 which just seemed to tick away silently in it's well insulated case. The teletype stations in that time had all the familiar smell of oil, burnt carbon, and a bin full of waste paper used both sides and tape floating about like streamers.

Creed 54 with cover
Creed Model 54 without
cover

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Today the station is a rather modest on what could be a down hill run, with moving into a more urban area in the last year or so the building restrictions and environmental restrictions laid down by local authorities now makes it a tedious if not an impossible task to get permits to have structures over 30ft. (9m.) so the days of the antennas are now a compromise and restricted to a dipole on 40 and 20 Mx. hidden in the garden trees. In contrast, the picture below, the 2 giant 5 element monobanders on 20mx. with 56feet booms dwaf the wide space 4 ele. on 10mx.(center of stack 1/2 wave spacing) top of stack 135 ft.

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SERVICES TO COMMUNITY AND FELLOW HAMs
Service to communities both local and international have been numerous from missing and injured in Search and Rescue to mass tragedies internationally as in.....

** Numerous SAR (Search and Rescue) AREC, ( Amateur Radio Emergency Corps) Searches ::Lost persons 1960 - 1992

** Inangahua Earthquake 1968

** World Health Organization Mexican Earthquake 1985

** South Canterbury Flooding mid 1980's

**J.O.T.A. Jamboree of the Air Scout and Guiding Movement. 18 yrs

** Small Vessels in Pacific (BBS) Facilities 1991-1995

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O.T C.

SCOUTING