Rimu Park

The Scout hall at Rimu Park was the venue for one of CARDS two JOTA sites. With the help of Paul Zl3TPA, and Mike ZL3TMB, we set up a vertical groundplane for 40 to 10 metres a horizontal for 80/40 and a long wire for the general coverage receiver. For VHF we had a dualband half wave for 6 and 2 metres and a collinear for 70cm.

The Scout hall had five open partitioned booths down each side and we used four of the booths for operating. In the first we had a display with the HF general coverage receiver demonstrating RTTY, PSK31, SSTV, HF weather, and FAX. There were also 2 VHF receivers on APRS and Packet

The second booth held the HF operating position with two HF rigs, one on 80 metres, and one on 40 metres. The third booth had the VHF operating position with 4 rigs, one on 2 metres IRLP, another on 6 metres and the last two on the 70cm national system and 70cm SSTV respectively.

The scouts and cubs came though in groups of 12 and with help at various times from Lorna, ZL3AAZ, John ZL3JA and Jeremy ZL3UQT, each group was shown and given the chance to do some (supervised) operating. Contacts were sparse but those we had were extremely good and lasted some time. The Stations contacted were in the USA, Australia, Belgium, England and of course New Zealand.

Other outdoor activities were also provided including sending messages using PRS radios, morse code with lights and semaphore with flags.

A fun but exhausting time was had by all.

Brian Zl3RJ