Saturday 12th September saw six ZL3 activators ascend eight separate summits on Banks Peninsula & Zl3X/ZL3AB up in the Hanmer region.
The mountain goats were:
- ZL3GA who did two summits, Flag Peak & Lavericks
- ZL3MR who also did two summits, Saddle Hill & Carews Peak
- ZL3DRN on Mt Evans
- ZL3ASN on Coopers Knob
- ZL3GIG on Duvauchelles Peak
- ZL3RIK on Flag Peak
- ZL3X on Mount Isobel
Geoff, ZL3GA was the cab off the rank & very quickly was able to get his 4+ contacts & was met by ZL3RIK who was taking over Flag Peak while Geoff went onwards to his second summit. The other mountain goats soon followed & 2 meters was a hive of activity for a short while as the respective summits were activated even as far away as chasers in Oamaru.
Most of us then migrated to various HF frequencies to contact others in the various parts of NZ & Australia to get those much sought after summit to summit points that all activators love to get & all of us achieved that goal.
It must be pointed out that all of NZ & Australia support the ZL3CC Memorial Day in the SOTA fraternity as Andrew was a well respected member of SOTA & was one of the first activators in NZ.
Weather wise the day was perfect. Not too hot & not much wind except for Mark who was operating in 17cm of snow.
We then met up at the Little River Cafe afterwards & were joined by Don ZL3DMC who set up his own field day shack at the Lake Ellesmere spit.
Statistics for ZL3 activators: 193 QSO’s
94 summit to summit contacts Bands used:
80m 60m 40m 30m 20m 17m 2m 70cm
Just as a comparison there were 330 QSOs logged by actvators throughout ZL with a sum total of 16 ZL summits actvated.
Photo’s & Word’s by Rick ZL3RIK
