Quartz Hill ⁽⁴⁾

The QHUG remote site enclosure being fitted out Doug ZL2AOV writes in his report on the WARC February 2016 club meeting: "QHUG members are expecting “a very active year” – Bernard ZL2BD made a Powerpoint presentation showing his summer work fitting out the fibreglass box with solid-state linears and power supplies, switching regulators to provide 230v DC, 24v and 12v DC for the various items, plus a solar panel regulator and wiring harnesses for the huge battery bank. Progressive testing is imminent – any noise problems will be dealt with as they arise. Other jobs to do are: complete the antenna switching and the SCADA software to operate remotely (SCADA = Supervisory Controller & Data Acquisition). Frank ZL2TTS has been working on this. Cooling circuitry also needs assembly and installation; the enclosure’s front panel will be modified for this. Noted that Ralph ZL2AOH is stepping down as QHUG treasurer after many years."

http://remote.zl6qh.com Check out the new ZL6QH Remote Site website. This will chronicle developments with the proposed remote site of the Quartz Hill User Group.

Kordia has kindly donated some surplus equipment for the QHUG future remote site. This includes two Datron 1Kw linear amplifiers and associated 28V power supplies as indicated in the images below. These will be straight forward to connect up to amateur transceivers at the remote site. We were also gifted two Datron transceivers that could be used for a range of purposes (e.g. beacon stations or for fixed frequency digital mode use) and a Furuno receiver. These donations are huge boost to the project!

As I mentioned at our last club meeting, I have been working on a paper that argues for a reconsideration of DX and contesting antennas for the low bands. This means that a smaller site would be required for any replacement station for Quartz Hill. I argue in the paper that phased vertical arrays make the most sense for 160m through 30m for a NZ DX location. Any site larger than about 1Ha would be adequate to build a collection of such arrays. You can download the paper on the ZL6QH website. Mike ZL1AXG