Why is it there and what is it?
Went for a walk along the ridgeline of Tinakori Hill today. Magnificent views, and very enjoyable on a hot sunny day like today.
Everytime I go up there and I look at the above structure and wonder what the hell was it meant to be, and why is it up there. Sometimes I think it looks like a basketball scoreboard. At other times I think it is the back of a hoarding. Others, maybe it could be a screen for a drive-in movie.
However it is on top of a hill with no vehicle access and stuff all passer-bys. Why would you have it there?
Someone out there I reckon knows what it is, and the history of it. If you do, please leave a comment.
Oh yes, and could the owner please clean the graffiti off it.
UPDATE: Thanks to some smart readers, the mystery has been solved. It is a passive microwave repeater. I would have never guessed that due to the lack of electronics or electricity to it, but of course it doesn’t need any.
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November 14th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
When I am in Wellington, I have been past that board many of times with the same question, will be interested in reading the responses!
November 14th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
It is one of Trevor Mallards cunning plan for a billboard but they couldn’t afford to finish it.
November 14th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
Maybe its Trevor’s latest high tech listening device – aimed squarely at Chez Farrar!
November 14th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
It’s not the microwave repeater that’s up there is it?
November 14th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
It’s an old-school radio reflector. And the hill is now called Te Ahu Mairangi…
[DPF: When did they change the name?]
November 14th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Depending on the colour of your team it’s a list of National’s achievements or Labour’s costed policies.
November 14th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Not a microwave reflector is it? I think microwave links need line of sight, so have a look to see what two major buildings or installations are at the right angle?
November 14th, 2011 at 4:00 pm
CrazyIvan is right. It’s a microwave repeater.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_repeater
November 14th, 2011 at 4:00 pm
A previous generation Wellington Airport idiotic-slogan location?
November 14th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
It is Helen Clark’s mind control device. But the circuits were damaged in an electrical storm and only Chris Carter knows how to fix it, so Labour is stuffed.
November 14th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
It depicts what went through Phil Goff’s mind when John asked him to “show me the money”.
November 14th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
“It depicts what went through Phil Goff’s mind when John asked him to “show me the money”.”
Yeah I thought nothing of John’s theatrics either.
November 14th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
It is a passive reflector for a microwave link. The supports are designed so the angle can be fine tuned. I think the link in question is the Wellington Central Exchange (corner Stout/ Featherston Streets) to a repeater station on Makara High thence to the South Island (most inter island communications traffic is now via fibre optic submarine cables leased from Transpower). Whether it is still used I do not know. There is another passive reflector nearby.
There used to be a forest of aerials up there as it used to be ZLW, which handled ship to shore radio, radio links to Chathams, Scott Base, etc. In the 1970′s the cheapest international call from NZ was to Scott Base – 15 cents per minute, even cheaper than Wellington – Auckland.
November 14th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
+1 on the passive reflector,
Next time you are up there stick some bread on a really long pole and tell us if it is still in operation
– kidding
November 14th, 2011 at 4:19 pm
DPF, next time you are up there, look for trig stations and survey markers. I think that there is also GNS tectonic monitoring equipment up there. There is a lazer that points across the harbour to measure the movement along the continental fault.
November 14th, 2011 at 4:34 pm
Cool. Learn something new every day.
November 14th, 2011 at 4:37 pm
There is a mysterious similar board, low down on the hillside behind the Cromwell race course.
I have asked a lot of people but nobody seems to know.
Not totally rectangular, very big, may be 100 to 150 square meters and camouflage painted.
Maybe a leftover from the Hydro project of the 80s
? ? ?
November 14th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
It’s clearly a sleeper microwave repeater, installed by a secret faction of the VRWNLLWC. isn’t it obvious??
November 14th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
In terms of the name change, I don’t have the details to hand, but it was undertaken as part of the settlement with the Tenths trust for the port nicholson block. I think that it was first announced in 2009, and then gazetted last year or early this year.
More information is available at http://www.linz.govt.nz/placenames/consultation-decisions/a-to-z/te-ahumairangi-hill
November 14th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Who needs their TV dinner reheated that badly that they have to walk up that hill to do it, and miss home and away??? I am confused? [that's what a Labour voter would say....though I shouldnt have said that - prob end up on Red Alert's hit list!!]
November 14th, 2011 at 5:23 pm
I understood it was tied up with the airport. If I remember correctly there’s another one near Wrights Hill.
Lovely part of the city isn’t it.
November 14th, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Its a new site for the massiah,the national PM Key(towards a better future banner) site
OPPS i hope he dosnt complain to the police
hes very testy when rorts are talked about
November 14th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
You are all so clearly deluded.
It is obvious that this is a mind-controlling gamma ray receptacle to direct sleeper agents around the world, and has played a key role in the Kennedy assassination and in the death of Princess Diana, and the so-called “9/11 attacks”. How do you think the Jews and the Freemasons control stuff?! Come on!
November 14th, 2011 at 8:56 pm
It;s a tinfoil hat detector, it’s part of the echelon network…..
November 15th, 2011 at 12:14 am
Its not the only one, there are in fact three on Tinakori Hill. Perhaps a great spot for Green Party supporters to shelter under to save them from our brain-probes. The tents in Civic Square didn’t work, I see they have all fucked off home.
November 15th, 2011 at 6:51 am
What an informative – and amusing – bunch kiwibloggers are…None of the above thread – from the original post on – is conceivable on the Stranded…will they survive Labour’s pending crushing defeat?
November 15th, 2011 at 7:14 am
It is an edifice that proves, yet again, the hypocrisy of the left.
(Because lets face it, on KB you could take a photo of a daisy or a chip packet and people would still see the hypocrisy of the left in it
)
November 15th, 2011 at 7:40 am
David Garrett
Given that possibility that Labour’s biggest down fall is their persistent negative campaigning it’s hard to grasp how low the average ‘political IQ’ must actually be at the standard. I suspect they like a lot of things “lefty” they fall to notice that their methods are a failure because they are dim enough to think their ideology justifies their actions.
November 15th, 2011 at 8:29 am
The question you need to ask is ……
Does everyone that walks past it go sterile?
November 15th, 2011 at 11:55 am
A few weeks ago I found a similar object at the Wrights Hill reserve overlooking the Karori Sanctuary (Zealandia, I guess it’s called now). Suspected it was some kind of reflector, now I know.