New Zealand Radar

[deconz]

QF27 almost dead overhead NZNV just now heading for SCL. Caught a glimpse of it thru the clouds as it passed by

[41south]

The DPD antenna was delivered a few days ago and went up onto the roof the day before yesterday. At the same height as my 'home grown' antenna it is certainly doing a better job distance wise. I'm going to mount it up another couple of metres and see if I can clear a couple of obstacles in the southerly and westerly directions. This will probably happen Monday or Tuesday.

I initially took the bpf out of line and thought that my interference problems had magically disappeared with a properly tuned antenna. For most points of the compass rose that did seem to be true - until it came to traffic on the Australia inbound tracks to the west of me. These for some reason are still suffering and need the bpf in place to show at any distance over 40-50 nm. That little jem I am at a loss to explain, but it works so I'm sticking with it.

Next up will be replacing the manky old RG-58 coax with a nice run of LMR-400 or such like. I'm not sure that changing the 7m run will make a huge difference, but what the heck, it's all good fun :-)

[Oblivian]

Oh yes it will

58 double sheilded to 400 6m, I gained a fair whack of further affield signal. Stronger and a little more throw

[nzradar]

Hi 41 South,

Don't kid yourself, the antenna is a great step up but replacing the RG58 with LMR400 will make you wonder why you didn't do it sooner with your other antenna!

[nzradar]

Talking of catching a glimpse, I was sat in my office at home studying last weekend and living close to Palmerston North airport I am used to hearing planes on approach and seeing them low on the downwind leg. I heard the beginnings of an arriving plane but quickly realised that it was a jet (unusual for Palmy!) so I shot out of my chair, grabbed the bino's and headed outdoors. The cloud was a little low but with some chunks of blue. I scanned the sky in the direction of the noise which by now had me convinced that this was no 737 or A320 and all of a sudden in a patch of blue appeared this Russian Antonov AN-124 at about 5,000 feet with wheels and flaps down. It flew across the extended centre line of runway 07 and headed out for Ohakea.

Of course I realised what it was and why it was here but I did not expect it to come round the back of Palmy from the south to pick up the ILS approach for 27 at OHA.

I read elsewhere the following day that it departed OHA for BNE but I'd be interested to know where it came from. My guess is CHC but I'm not sure.

[Oblivian]

I had a hit of it on my radar which I thought was strange, and asked if it had been down here. But apparently not. Unless it was diverted for a short time and then went back, but was awful strange for me to get it!

Was advised it come in from Jakarta

And looking at my logs, A41-210 C17 from the RAAF around today

[Petenz]

Strange contrail today. From NZCH out almost due east for 270 NM approx and then a wide turnaround and looks as if it was headsing back to christchurch. I was not monitoring at the time so have no idea what it was. Can anyone enlighten me?

July 27th 2013.jpg

[NZWND NDB]

Petenz - I was watching it this afternoon , it was a VOZ maybe ZK-PBJ I went to note it down but got sidetracked

[Oblivian]

Correct. I did a job at the airport just after 12. Saw it take off as I was parking and thought it strange for that time of day, turned on ATC to hear it call with a 4 digit velocity C/Sign and asked to do low alt work in a somethingarather region which I had not heard before but figured it would be heading out for training or post service checks

27-07-2013 12:52 ZK-PBL B738 VOZ9501 C81C16
27-07-2013 14:25 ZK-PBL B738 VOZ9501 C81C16

Likewise, all this week around lunchtime has been one of the ZK-Ns 73s we cant 'see' doing touch n goes for a good 2hrs with pilot training

[41south]

I see OXB making an appearance today CHC-AKL. I know it arrived into CHC the other day, but hadn't seen it doing a passenger run before now.

[Petenz]

There is a waypoint called DOPOM out where that ZK-PBL went to ,which is inline with the Chathams, so possibly that was what it was telling ATC.

low alt work in a somethingarather region

[41south]

A "busy" spot on the ADS-B

busy ads-b.jpg

[Oblivian]

A "busy" spot on the ADS-B

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2400[/ATTACH]

Reasonable range! Looks like you need to configure VR to use the basestation.sqb planeplotter is editing Or if you aren't a PP user I can hook you up with my NZ based one and you can build on it from there with SBSpopulate

[Kpin]

I just realised that nzradar is pulling out, in fact it seems as if NZPM has already stopped.
Not questioning the reasons, but it leaves quite a gap between WLG and AKL, and also the expertise will be missed on the forum.

But anyway good luck to Michael in what ever interests you are going to pursue in the future.

[41south]

I did wonder what was up with NZPM not being there any more, that certainly does leave a gap up there. My coverage is ok on the higher routes but certainly doesn't provide the lower stuff.

Reasonable range! Looks like you need to configure VR to use the basestation.sqb planeplotter is editing Or if you aren't a PP user I can hook you up with my NZ based one and you can build on it from there with SBSpopulate

Nope, not a PP user so any help would be much appreciated