Looking North from the Quartz Hill access road - Kapiti Island is behind
Mana Island. On certain rare clear days, the spectacular conical peak of the
8300ft volcano Mt.Taranaki can just be seen on the horizon - 141 miles (225km)
across the sea !
ZL6QH, ZL1V and ZM2K photos
Click on any of these photos to see an enlarged version (each 1MB .jpg)
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ZL6QH photos
Quartz Hill is a unique place - 240 acres of HF contest station located 12km North-West of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand.
Looking North from the Quartz Hill access road - Kapiti Island is behind
Mana Island. On certain rare clear days, the spectacular conical peak of the
8300ft volcano Mt.Taranaki can just be seen on the horizon - 141 miles (225km)
across the sea !
Looking North past the main building
The main building at QH, seen from the North
Looking North from beside the main building - the Rhombic in the distance
The famous (3-wire) Rhombic antenna
One
of the feedpoints of the Rhombic
The Rhombic open-wire feeders - the box on the pole half-way along contains
the direction switching relays
Andrei ZL1TM (on left) on 20m and Wilbert ZL2BSJ on 80m in CQ WPX CW 2004
Brian ZL1AZE on 40m in CQ WPX CW 2004
Franz ZL2III (DK1II) on 40m in CQ WPX CW 2004
'Farewell to Franz' - L to R - Mike ZL2BCW, Chris ZL1CT, Ralph ZL2AOH, Bob
ZL2AMI, Franz ZL2III, Brian ZL1AZE
A typical QH maintenance task - planting a replacement pole to carry
feed-lines
Repairing one of the two 6-ele 28MHz yagis - made of thin Al tubing on ropes
- fixed Eu/USA
The new 5 ele 20m yagi, beamed on the Long Path to Europe.
Closer view of the 20m Eu LP yagi
Sunset over the Cook Strait from QH - the South Island of N.Z. in the
distance
Click here to see a diagram of the (now dismantled) ZL6QH antennas
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ZL1V Photos
ZL1V does not have a permanent home yet, so we operate from either the ZL6QH station or the ZM2K station. Here are some photos of ZL1V activity from these 2 locations :
IARU HF Championships - July 2004 - at ZL6QH
ZL1V activated for the first time - SOAB - SO2R
CQ WW SSB - October 2004 - at ZM2K
Visitors to the SOAB ZL1V station - L to R - Chris ZL2DX, Wilbert
ZL2BSJ, Barry the farmer.
L to R - Chris ZL2DX, Chris ZL1CT, Barry
Some of the ZL1V antennas - quarter-wave verticals for 40, 20 and 15m
ARRL DX SSB - March 2005 - at ZM2K
The 'Ute' (Utility vehicle i.e. Pick-up) loaded ready for the 50-minute drive
from the Hutt Valley to the ZM2K site in the Wairarapa.
The exciting 'Rimutaka Hill Road' which rises to 555m a.s.l., linking the Hutt
Valley to the Wairarapa.
Barry's son Nigel chasing the horses out of the paddock in spectacular style
!
Repairing the pole which carries the 'Southern Wairarapa 715' 2m repeater
antenna (which is located at ZM2K) L to R Jim, Neil ZL2BLM
Some of the ZL1V antennas - quarter-wave verticals for 40, 20 and 15m - fed with
a single LDF4-50A feeder from the shack via an Ameritron RCS-8V 5-way remote
coax switch. Notice how burnt the grass is compared to the October photo
above - there has been no rain for 3 months here.
The simple 'field-day' set-up used for ARRL SSB - FT-1000MP + Alpha 91B +
Heil HC4 + Writelog 10.52F - in the 'woolshed'
The take-off from ZM2K to Europe (Long-path)
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ZM2K Photos
ZM2K was one of the best-known N.Z. callsigns of the early and mid-1990s and one of the few Multi-op stations active in Oceania, setting many contest records. ZM2K has not been QRV since 1998, and only the 7ele 28MHz yagi remains on site. ZM2K is located 7km NW of the town of Martinborough in the SE part of the North Island called the Wairarapa.
The woolshed where the 6 ZM2K stations were set up
The ZM2K 28MHz 7element yagi - a real 'band-opener' This antenna was
used by Wilbert ZL2BSJ (signing ZL2DX) to be World number 1 in the 1998 ARRL 10m
contest
Barry Laing - the owner of the farm where ZM2K is located