Having woken up at stupid o’clock then getting up an hour later to go to the dawn service at Stockade Hill Howick, Dave ZL1DL was taking it easy for the day, when early afternoon Harry ZL1BK popped up on 40m musing going portable in the Musick Point carpark. A short conversation later it was agreed to meet there shortly after. Harry asked if I had an NZ (New Holland) flag, to which I simply replied “You’ve seen the inside of my vehicle – what do you think? And so a short time later we met up at a crowded top carpark at Musick Point.
To entertain the public, the idea was to set up in the carpark, rather than in the relative calm directly in front of the building. After attaching the flag ( and yes I did have one in the back of the CRV ) to the 1/4λ 40m vertical, Harry’s antenna was ready for use in less than 5 minutes after arriving.
To support the power hungry IC-706, Harry rolled out a PV panel. Unfortunately it was pointed at 8/8ths cloud cover, so not quite the green energy we hoped for. Regardless, a couple of contacts were made on 40, then we went QRP with the IC-705. Reports were probably down an S point or 2, but still generally easy contacts were made.
Later, with 40m fading, a quick switch to 10m brought S9 VK’s ( or AXs as they were today ). Again the QRP of the IC-705 was no impediment.
Curious passers by stopped to chat. The odd thing was most of them knew about ham radio – had a family member or relative who was a ham or at least interested in radio. One passer by was even a ham – “They walk amongst us”…
A very enjoyable impromptu afternoon – next year we should look to organise the ANZAC flag flying a little earlier!