Waianakarua

Dunedin visitors

2011-01-06T13:03:00.000-08:00

On October 15th and 16th, some DXers from Dunedin visited for a spot of DX.

Ian Wells and Phil Garden stayed the first night and were joined by Jon Woods and David Miller the second night.

Reception conditions were pretty average. So saying, the guys enjoyed the relatively quiet band conditions and heard quite a few US stations on MW.

Ian and Phil were roped in to helping put the North American beverage back up. The far end is now supported on 4m galv poles rather than bushes so hopefully it will be less prone to breaking.

6M antenna now up

2011-01-05T23:57:00.001-08:00

Thanks to a helping hand from Ken McVie ZL4NR, there is now a 6M antenna at Waianakarua. It is the YU7EF 5 element antenna I built for use in Greta Street and unable to erect in Swift St (current home location) so using some old pipe, poly rope and muscle power, it now sits above the cabin.

AC Power

2010-04-23T15:29:00.000-07:00

I purchased a good second-hand 3kVA Honda generator for the cabin. So for the first time in 28 years, the place was vacuumed out! Having AC power available will be handy but the noise from the gene will mean it won't be used when DXing.

I have also swapped one of the 160Ah batteries for 10 28Ah units which will be much more manageable.

North American antenna fixed...

2008-09-20T20:32:00.000-07:00

Thanks to David Headland, the North American antenna is up again. Took a couple of hours in warm, blustery conditions. Was pleased to find that someone had killed all the gorse, blackberry, briar and other scratchy, itchy stuff along the banks of the river. Along with the broom and other woods, some of which once supported the antenna so next trip will add a couple of metal poles and stakes to the recipe.

30th April 2008

2008-05-02T16:40:00.001-07:00

Sutton ZL4QJ and Ray VK4HDX getting serious...

The weather man was right! It rained most of the night and pretty much all day... finally clearing around 3:30pm but that was MW DX time so no work done on the antenna...

Here's a trail of some of what we heard...

560 0516 R Colon, San Juan, Argentina, distinctive mx, ids and temp.
570 0719 R Reloj, Cuba usual morse ids and all-nx format. Regularly heard.
580 0559 KMJ Fresno CA, gud w/promo on "the central valleys emerging place in California"
670 015 R Rebelde, Cuba gd sig w/ FA & MA then pops, //710 even stronger
690 0855 HCJB Quito fr w/Andean tunes in //3220.
820 0448 R Reloj, Cuba usual morse ids and all-nx format. Regularly hrd here.
830 0609 WCCO MInneapolis MN gd w/wx forecast for the twin cities.
860 0651 R Reloj, Cuba usual morse ids and all-nx format
870 0925 R Reloj, Cuba usual morse ids and all-nx format
930 0359 R Nuevo Mindo, Chile, gd w/id, dominant o/Colombian
940 0429 WINZ Miami FL local ads, promo and ids - dominant over Fresno
950 0811 R Reloj, Cuba usual morse ids and all-nx format
1210 0559 UNID SS relig "Cadena radial cristiana" maybe KPRZ San Marcos???
1280 0543 R Tupi, Brazil, up vry briefly w/ IDS in 30 seconds then gone...
1320 0430 R Apolo, Turmero, Venezuela, gud sig,many ids o/Peru
1540 0700 KGBC Galveston TX, nice surprise when waiting for a Latin to id, they faded and up popped this one, no news, straight into gospel mx but quickly disappeared.
1600 0459 WKWF (tent) Key West FL "Sports Radio 1600" ids, running Westwood One and Sports News radio progs.
1660 0523 WGIT Canovanas, Puerto Rico, good w/plenty ids and lively mx, dominant.
1700 0810 WEUV (tent.) Huntsville AL, promo as "the Motown sound" not many other likely takers.

29th April 2008

2008-05-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

Prior to the impending arrival of Ray and Sutton for two nights of MW DXing, I spent the morning and afternoon cleaning the cabin and and checking the antennas.

After a cuppa tea it was time to check out the MW bands and settle in for some DX. The band was open to Florida and WINZ Miami, WHNZ Tampa, WKWF West Key were logged.

Location etc...

2008-03-11T19:33:00.000-07:00

Using Google Earth, I have ascertained the coordinates as 45 deg 14' 56" South, 170 deg 46' 37" East. Grid reference RE54js.

The IOTA reference is OC-134

Google map reference: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-45.249105,170.7771&z=19&t=h&hl=en

CQ Zone: 32
ITU Zone: 60

Cheers,

Paul

Day One

2008-03-08T15:31:00.000-08:00

Since 1982, my remote site at Waianakarua has been
used for MW and SW DXing of the listening style... i.e. no transmitters!
Please visit my Waianakarua
page for more on its use as a haven for MW DX!

As a ham site, the lack of tall trees or anything else
to support antennas has been a hindrance and one attempt using low-slung
vee-beams (about 3 - 4m high) revealed the inadequacies of such a system.