San Antonio Hams

Does anyone in the area have the ability to program a Motorola Radius M1225 – M43DGC90E2AA?

I am pretty sure it will program where I want it too! 

Please Reply to k1stx@arrl.net,

Thank You,

Louis Upton, K1STX

Topic: AFTER ACTION REPORT
Event: NAVY-MARINE CORPS MARS / REACT HURRICANE EXCERCISE
Conducted : AUGUST 29, 2009
Written by: Bob Hejl – W2IK – W5BOG – NNN0KSI – NNN0GBY2 NMC MARS STX ECOM 
Report Released: September 4, 2009

The joint exercise as conducted by Navy-Marine Corps MARS, REACT and Bexar Operators Group on August 29, 2009 also encompassed other groups who wished to test inter-service communications during the scenario of a hurricane hitting the Texas gulf coast just north of Corpus Christi.

These other groups included / covered:

• Guadalupe County OEM
• Hays County Sheriff’s Office
• Caldwell County EOC
• San Marcos Police Department
• Nueces County EOC
• National Weather Service – Corpus Christi
• National Weather Service – New Braunfels
• Central Texas Medical Center
• Chaparral Amateur Radio Club
• Hays/Caldwell Hams Amateur Radio Club
• Hays/Caldwell ARES Guadalupe VOAD
• Lockhart Police Department
• Driscoll Children’s Hospital – Corpus Christi
• One Army MARS Station
• Guadalupe Valley Amateur Radio Club (provided the VHF repeater)

If we left out any additional groups who participated, please contact us with the proper details. – Bob

We were testing out the MOU’s between REACT and NMC MARS as well as intercommunication skills. The exercise began at 11 AM local time with three phases: Pre-Land Fall (testing evacuation communications) , Land Fall (testing up to date weather conditions and storm damage) and Post Land Fall (evacuees returning to their homes, damage assessment, etc) In the spirit of cohesiveness, the operation was a success.

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I’m sorry to report that my vehicle was broken into and burglarized, here in San Antonio.

They got the following equipment:

• Yaesu FT-857
• Yaesu FT-7800
• 2 MFJ Mighty-Lite 25 amp switching power supplies
• 2 Puxing VHF handhelds
• Rigid Cordless Drill
• Ryobi bit set
• ECG soldering gun

The radios and power supplies were marked with my call sign (NS5D).     A police report has been filed.   Please be on the lookout for this stuff and contact the police and myself if you find it.

There have been a rash of “smash-and-grab” car burglaries in San Antonio recently.   I thought if I kept my stuff out of sight in a box in the back of my truck, it would not be noticed.   No dice.  

73,
Shane NS5D

Here are a few photos provided by Ray KE5KHN, taken during the Hurricane Drill while out at the Seguin Westbound IH-10 Rest Stop at the 619 mile marker.

Ray says…

I was the rookie of the bunch and what I learned most, was that I have a lot more to learn regarding antennas, HF, and emergency communications procedures.  I really enjoyed the experience and the camaraderie of the fellow HAM operators working together for the same cause.
 
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Photos provided by Bob W2IK covering the operators stationed near IH-37 South and Hwy 181 exit, monitoring contra flow, plus the Floresville RV Park on Hwy 181.

Bob, W2IK – NNN0KSI – NNN0GBY2, Bexar Operator Group and NMC MARS) reported from Floresville on weather conditions, traffic flow and relays information from MARS into the REACT ham system. He also acted as a MARS relay station when propagation conditions prevented communications between a few MARS stations.
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The following news was found at the
www.texasbugcatcher.com website.

Effective October 31, 2009,  GLA Systems will cease to manufacture the  Texas BugCatcher Antenna.  It has been a fun 30 years but it is time to hang it up.  I would like to thank everyone that has made this experience possible. I have made many friends (maybe an enemy or two) but overall it has been a great trip down a long road.

All orders received before October 31, 2009 will be filled.   Effective  November 1, 2009 only orders for items that may be in stock at the time will be accepted.

Also effective December 31, 2009 the 1-800-588-2841 toll free line will be discontinued.

73 and Happy Hamming to all
Good luck and best wishes.

Henry, K5BUG & Tina Allen
GLA Systems
2802 County Rd 2226
Caddo Mills, TX 75135
1-800-588-2841
www.texasbugcatcher.com

On Saturday, August 29th, there were a few of us who got up when the chickens did, to get our radios and portable antennas ready for a South Texas Hurricane Drill.    Some operators chose locations that were pre-set up and air conditioned, others like me chose to “rough it” in the great outdoors without any AC.   Fortunately for us, the weather cooperated and it didn’t storm on us, nor did it get as hot as recent days.   My van’s thermometer (sitting out there in the sun on black asphalt) got up to 102, but it wasn’t that hot inside our very shaded shelter area.  We should have brought a box fan with us, but we didn’t think about that until we were already there and set up.

Hill Country REACT Team was tasked with staffing the state rest area located on west bound IH-10 at the 619 mile marker.  To convert that description into plain English, this was the last major rest stop on IH-10 for folks coming west from Houston or the coast, prior to Seguin or even San Antonio, TX.  This rest stop has been used in previous (actual) evacuations to monitor traffic flow on the interstate, so that emergency officials (primarly in San Antonio) could be given advance notice of mass arrivals.    We only truly needed to run 2 meters VHF capability here, but we experimented with a couple of HF antennas as well.

Today, three members (Lee N5NTG, Gary K5GST, Ray KE5KHN) of our REACT Team set up as part of a much larger drill, a drill that saw at least 2 ARES groups, our REACT Team, the Bexar Operators Group, South TX Navy-Marine Corps MARS, an Army MARS station, 2 National Weather Service Offices, multiple county EOC’s both near SA and down by the coast, etc.

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A blast from the 70’s, when “Radio” in “Radio Shack” still meant something…

Compared with today….

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In a recent posting by W2IK, the upcoming drill on Saturday, August 29th, was discussed in rather general terms.   Since that time, we’ve increased the scope of this event somewhat.    We’ve added one ARES group (Hayes / Caldwell County) to the mix, and have room for more if other groups want to  participate.

The event will only last 3 hours of radio time (11am – 2pm Saturday), compressing several days into 3 hours.  What fun!   We’ll be using local VHF freqs for operations near SA and another freq for local CC comm, plus a 40 meters net for the group, and MARS’s HF freq for their internal operations.  We’ll be using the NWS office in New Braunfels KD5UMW and Drisocoll Childrens Hospital W5DCH as net controls.

Event:  Hurricane “Albert” is expected to make landfall just north of Corpus with maximum winds at 130 mph.

• Hour 1 – Pre-Landfall – evacuation of residents in coastal cities in path of storm. Problems with evac routes and major side routes.  Status of Shelter fill rates, etc.
• Hour 2 – Landfall – Loss of power, high winds, property damage noticed, major flooding and high surf conditions.  Problems with evac routes and major side routes.  Status of Shelter fill rates, etc.
• Hour 3 – Post-Landfall – Sending in teams to evaluate damage, return residents, status of evac routes being returned to normal use, power failures in area, comm failures in area due to towers blown or power failures, etc.  Wrap up.

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One Ham’s struggle to get it up.  

This blog post is reposted with link back to the original post at hamhelpdesk.com. 

Here are some details regarding the next, and probably last, phase of my 43 Foot DX Engineering vertical installation.   This post is very late. The actual date of the events within it are just before March 2009 in preparation for the Virginia QSO Party.

In the many posts within this site, it is no secret my examination of various vertical antenna solutions with comparison between BigIR and the 43 Foot products a big part of this.

Check out all the 43 Foot posts on HamHelpDesl here…  43 Foot Antenna Topic

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