For Pacific Radio Amateurs

Conducted By Ex Zk-1-Ac/Vr-2-Ak.

KAddress notes to P.O. Box 5179, sellesley Street, Auckland, N.Z.) . ISLAND HAMS: Let your Pacific

vighbours know you’re active by

necking in on your favourite band i ith a CQ at 0100/0700/19002, Use c a known time will help you— nd them. iJust too late for inclusion last month [me a letter from Jean Duplat, FKBAB, Noumea, bringing us up-to-date on tents in the New Caledonia-New Hebrides rea. Jean has a nice VFO transmitter ith an 813 in the final, plate-and-screen odulated with 811’s. and a Hammarlund IJ-120X receiver, but is troubled with a ng. light-gauge power-line that will not .rry the load from his power plant 500 trds away. However, when a new shack ■mes into use any day now FKBAB is xely to be heard with greater effect, tan has been calling CQ’s on 7 mc/s, iceiving no replies—then unaccountably iceiving. by mail, good signal reports om European listeners.

Jean says that, in FKB, conditions in orning and evening are moderately good i 7 mc/s, but with heavy QRN later, •urteen mc/s has been as good as dead, so 28 mc/s, but 21 mc/s has been lively early mornings with plenty of ZL, K, W, and North Pacific sigs coming trough. He never uses 3.5 mc/s, but ans to give 50 mc/s a trial in le course, if permission can be obtained, hat band is not available in France, xe to television, but it may be possible use it out here. So this should be good ;ws to the VHF men.

Other items from Jean’s letter; FKBAO, FQBAE —latest addition to the FKB’s— using NBFM which “sounds like AM.” ith an 807 in the final he has been »ard on 7 mc/s in Fiji recently. FUBAA is finished a new transmitter and ceiver and is obtaining good results on mc/s, suppressor-modulating an 803.

JBAC, still off the air, is “fighting to e death with a VFO and modulator”— ith plenty of trouble getting it going, an says YJ-1 stations have not been :ard for a long time.

Grounded in Suva through living in a C-wired hotel, your scribe took the Type /Mk.3 along in mid-June, when paying quick visit to Lautoka. The locals itched with interest as a temporary :rial was strung along the front of the mtoka hotel. A 7 mc/s sked with VR2AS •ck in Suva was planned at 0700 GMT; it not a sound of each other’s sigs is heard. A CQ failed to raise a VK W, of which many were heard; but ter in the evening back came FKBAN— new one—with a good signal report on e midget transmitter.

Back in Suva, we helped Stan make me alterations to his 7/14 mc/s ground ane antenna, with seemingly good suits. Conditions are clearly far better i 14 me s in Fiji than in Auckland.

VR2AP, waiting to get into his new •me, has still not unpacked his gear ace returning from Auckland in May, it late July may see him in action. The •ge is visible.

FKBAC, absent in France for some time, turned to Noumea in June per maiden •yage of “Tahitien,” so should be on te air again by now.

From FOB-land in June same a QSL card for one of the VR2’s from Jack Wheeler, temporarily FOBAI of the yacht “GEMINI.” The card depicts a rakish looking palm-leaf shack perched high in the trunk of a very tall and slender coco nut palm—with a yacht lying offshore.

Maybe this is the way Jack has been operating from his QTH’s in the Marquesas, Tuamotu and elswhere. though we doubt it. The card is attractive and certainly original. “Gemini” we under stand is now working her way north again towards Honolulu and Seattle, using the home call of W7FNK when at sea.

Dick Northcott, VR2CM, whose gear, he thought, had escaped the effects of the hurricane of 18 months ago, followed in the footsteps of the other Suva-area Hams in June, when his main power tranny burnt out. Luckily, he was able to borrow another from VR2AS as a stand-in.

VR2CS, Keith Broadbridge—eecVKSSC VK2ASG —was preparing to split the ether late June with a 4-watt phone rig on 7058 kc/s, which works across town anyway! DC mains and a noisy location hold him temporarily from bigger things, though a 50-watt 14 mc/s VFO phone rig is being prepared. The receiver is an 8-tube home-brew super.

Latest correction to the VR2 list: strikes out VR2CN—due to depart per manently for VK2 in early July.

Laurie Price at Suva Met Office, VR2CT

—ex ZL3oF—shows un on 80-metre CW with the ZC-1 on Monday evenings onl^ — so get your QSO applications in early.

He's also known to take a jab at 7 mc/s occasionally. Jack Paton. who returned to Nandi some time ago, has not yet got VR2AC on the air. August may see some action.

Twirling the dials briefly one Sunday

at VRSAS’s we heard ZM6AA calling the Cook Is. latest recruit, Doug, ZK-l-BG, on 14 mc/s; and from other sources we understand that the latter is now very active there, which should please the card huntsmen around the world.

The experts tell us that around October the sunspot minimum should occur, after which conditions should climb fairly rapidly out of the doldrums; so now’s the time to start planning out those 14 and 31 mc/s beams.

No news from your area? Then send some along—we’ll certainly use it.