2ZA Te Manawa Exhibition

The Te Manawa Museum in Palmerston North is running a display on the first radio station in the Manawatu which started its first broadcast 70 years ago. Radio station 2ZA went to air for the first time on the AM band in 1938.  

The 2ZA display runs from 16 August 2008 right through to 1 March 2009. Amongst the display are running audio tapes of some of the program content through the years, displays of old valve radios, and a fully built replica of the 2ZA studio as it was in the 1950’s when the station was located in George Street prior to it being moved to Main Street.

Also included in the display is a fully operational amateur radio station which is being run by members of the Manawatu Amateur Radio Society, Branch 20 NZART. We have the special event callsign ZL6ZA which will be active at times for the duration of the exhibition.

We have transceivers running on HF, 2 metres, and 70 cm. The HF will be running SSB, SSTV, PSK-31 and other digital modes when propagation allows on 80, 40, & 20 metres, and possibly on other HF bands where possible. The 2 metre frequencies are on our two repeaters which are 147.125 and IRLP on 145.725, (Please Note, we will have only one of these two frequencies running at any one time.) Our IRLP Node number is 6943. On 70 cm we have the National System.

A “Special Event QSL Card” will be issued at the conclusion of the exhibit after March 2009.

As Te Manawa is also a Learning and Education Centre, schools from around the district will be taking tours of the display and when they get to the amateur radio shack they will be partaking in various activities involving amateur radio. These include being given QSL cards to look over and locate the DX country on an enlarged World DX Map, and assembling and trying out a Morse code practice oscillator. Special emphasis will be made to activate the shack during these times; so if you hear ZL6ZA please do make contact with us so we can demonstrate to the children what amateur radio is all about.

By the time you read this another activity that has taken place was a presentation by Fred Johnson ZL2AMJ who displayed his “Radio Waves Project” which some of you will remember was presented by Fred at the 2007 NZART Conference in Palmerston North. A number of Fred’s Radio Waves Kits have been purchased and these will be presented randomly to some of the schools participating in the exhibition tour.

For those who would like to know more, or perhaps would like to visit the exhibition, the museum is open from 9am to 5pm daily. Te Manawa is located at 326 Main Street Palmerston North (right next door to the PN Convention Centre where the 2007 NZART Conference was held). You can free phone them on 0800-426-873 or check them out on the internet at www.temanawa.co.nz