President's Letter
My name is John Love, President of Branch 48, my call sign being ZL2JEL I have held this position for the last 3 years.
The Wanganui Amateur Radio Club, with the branch call sign of ZL2JA was formed many years ago, in fact was one of the first Radio Clubs to be set up in New Zealand.
We have a strong membership of both young and elderly members, who regularly turn out to meetings and club activities.
Our main VHF Repeater operates on 146.900 MHz from a location called the Maewa Bench Mark, which is located on a farm Property North of Wanganui City.
It has a very good coverage area with contacts made from Taupo down to Wellington
We also have a National System Repeater on the 70cm band with a frequency of 438.825 which will be located at Land Guards Bluff, which is South of the Wanganui city out near the Wanganui Airport. This station is still under construction, and the operating frequency may change in the near future. (I will keep this page updated as changes are made).
Wanganui is a small central city with approximately 43,000 people, laying on the south west corner coast of the North Island of New Zealand, approximately 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Wellington, our capital city. (Click to see map) We once had a very large Railways workshop here which employed many of our local people, but this was closed down several years ago and since that time things have changed in the city, some for the good and some for the worst. But times change and we must change with it.
The branch has also just been granted a licence to operate a STSP Repeater with the transmit frequency of 438.625 MHz and receive on 433.625 MHz.
73 de John ZL2JEL
