Musick Memorial Radio Station

The Musick Memorial Radio Station is an impressive building in the Modern style, which was opened in 1942 to communicate with ships and aircraft.

The station was the headquarters of the maritime coast station Auckland Radio ZLD, and of aviation radio ZLF.

ZLD and ZLF were initially operated by the New Zealand Post Office before the aviation radio service was taken over by the Civil Aviation Corporation, which moved it to Auckland Airport at Mangere. Later, ownership of Auckland Radio changed to Telecom NZ Ltd, and Telecom still uses the building for cellular services.

Following the closure of all New Zealand coast radio stations in 1993, the equipment of Auckland Radio ZLD, including most of the Oliver Road transmitters, was acquired by the non-profit Musick Point Radio Group.

The Group, which includes several former Musick Point operators and technicians, has a long-term lease on the building, and has reactivated the station on the amateur (ham) radio bands using some of the former ZLD transmitters along with a range of modern equipment.

One of MPRG's major projects is keeping the traditional marine radiotelegraphy frequency of 512 kHz alive, and it has a special licence to operate on this frequency which is outside the normal amateur radio bands. In recognition of the station's historical importance, the Group has been issued the amateur radio callsigns ZL1ZLD and ZL1ZLF. The Group maintains a radio museum in the building and operates a low-power FM broadcast station with recorded information about Musick Point.

512 kHz was an original ZLD frequency, and was used by ZL1ZLD, the amateur radio station at Musick Point, until mid 2013 when amateurs were allocated a new 630 metre band (427-479 kHz).

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