Wellington Amateur Radio Club - ZL2WB

Field day operations At our May WARC meeting on Wednesday 18 May we were given a presentation on how the Patea/South Taranaki branch has approached NZART Jock White Field Day over the last 53 years. Glenn Kingston ZL2KZ, one of our own WARC members, has travelled north each year (with just one or two exceptions, such as when his XYL came down with a high fever) to assist with Field Day operations in South Taranaki. Glenn showed photos of two Field Day sites used over the last 50 years. For some time now, the South Taranaki branch has based their Field Day activities at a primary school located along the sea coast north of Patea. A 60' aluminium tower (sourced by a member who worked at the Motonui synthfuel plant) is stored on site. This is erected each year using a local farm tractor or RV as available. This skyhook allows for an 80m folded dipole antenna to be mounted at near a quarter wavelength above ground. A 40m antenna is mounted lower down the mast. More recently a secret weapon in the form of a vertical incidence 3 element 40 metre yagi pointed skyward has been added to the line up of antennas. The yagi has deployed knowledge provided by another WARC member…

Will Wellington continue to hold the Tony Fletcher award in 2016? This year's contest is from 2000 - 2300 NZST on Saturday 21 May and 2000 - 2300 NZST on Sunday 22 May. WARC members will need to work 20 contacts to qualify. Logs to be sent to Glenn ZL2KZ

The current Solar Cycle has proved to be a bit disappointing for amateur operators and will descend to a minimum within the next 2 to 4 years. We are already seeing dead bands in most daily forecasts. But how does our current cycle compare to earlier cycles? The following diagram shows peak sunspots from all observed solar cycles since the 1600's when sunspots were first recorded by astronomers. It turns out that cycle 24 is not particularly unusual in the scheme of things! And for an even longer perspective ... The last 12,000 years of sunspots! So what will happen in the next cycle (cycle 25)? You will find a number of predictions online. Because of the peak sunspot number in our current cycle there seems to be a growing consensus that we are unlikely to see the really nasty outcome of a second "Maunder minimum" (a period of almost 70 years with virtually no sunspots at all). It is likely, however, that we are exiting from the "Grand Maximum" period. We may well be entering a regular period that will look a bit like the period from 1724 to 1924 (a whole two centuries in duration!) in which sunspots are OK, but not good enough to make the record…

Our April 2016 WARC meeting featured a number of film clips of interest to ham radio operators and brought to us by James ZL2ET. We enjoyed finding out about the decline in electronics stores, but the rise in online electronics parts stores. We also went looking for gravity waves! The WARC committee presented a proposal for an honour roll for this website to recognise high achievers amongst our members - past and present. The proposal was adopted by members (the proposal is linked below). [wpdm_package id='1704']  

Our Annual General Meeting was a speedy one, meaning plenty of time for tea and coffee and a chat afterwards. The AGM was held on Tuesday 15 March 2016 at the Lutheran Church Hall, King St, Mt Cook, Wellington at 7.30pm. Officers and committee members from 2015 were re-elected unopposed. You will find posted below our final annual reports, financial accounts and draft minutes of meeting (to be confirmed at next year's AGM). [wpdm_category id=draft-annual-reports-feb-2016 order_field=title order=desc]