San Antonio Hams

Never know who is going to stop by. In March, I had President Bush chatting with me. In May, I met all of the San Antonio Spurs and they gave me an autographed basketball. This Friday (07/24) some of the “Hooter’s Calendar Girls” stopped by my place of work and served the wounded warriors chicken wings and autographed calendars. All I got was this picture.

It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.

73 Bob W2IK

Today’s Small Texan Triathlon was sponsored / organized by Britton Bikes of San Antonio, TX, and had 137 entries.   

The route included a swim (actual distance was 1480 meters) in the Boerne City Lake (just north of Boerne, TX), a 45k bike ride that went north up thru Waring, TX, and back, and a 10k run that went over the dam behind the lake cross-country, then out on Ranger Creek Road to a turn-around point and back to the park. 

There was just enough water left in the lake (which is also used for Boerne’s water supply) for them to swim, once the swimmers waded out about 30′ from shore.  The swim route was altered from the planned 1500 meter course due to shallow waters in the lake. We had joked about whether “mud wrestling” qualified for a USAT sanctioned triathlon (it doesn’t). 

The event organizers had “swimmer helpers” waiting out in the water at the finish shore when the swimmers returned, to help the tired swimmers change from a horizontal swim position, to walking upright once more on the rocky / muddy bottom of the lake until they reached the concrete ramp. 

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Used my emergency go-kit today to run net control for the Small Texan Triathlon up in Boerne, TX. 

I took the photo (on right) while standing on the back ramp of the race director’s trailer used for running net control during this event.  I’ll post a separate blog entry with my photos from today’s event.  We were on the air from 7am until about 12:30pm for the event that had 137 entries.  1480 meter swim, 45k bike ride, 10k run, certified course.  Temp only got up to the low 90’s by the time we shut down net control, but we also had a fine light breeze, enough to keep us cool inside the trailer, but not strong enough to bother the athletes.

Using this go-kit with the bigger external antenna wWas perhaps a bit “over-kill” in terms of my actual needs since the 2 meter repeater we used was full scale on an HT antenna, but as I told one of the other hams, the big antenna in the air and the rolling toolbox with radios looks more impressive to the (non-ham) event organizers or other spectators.  I was able to charge 2 of my HT batteries using the DC-AC 300w power converter just to do it.  Didn’t actually need the extra batteries or HT’s charged, but I wanted a real life test.

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I live in a “ham friendly” HOA on the NW side of San Antonio, TX, and our neighbors are very active in the community fighting graffiti and other common problems.  We’ve got our own 24/7 private security guards that cruise the neighborhoods (all 7 subdivisions, about 5,000 properties) all hours of the day and night, plus keeping an eye on our 2 swimming pools and other facilities. The Great Northwest Community Improvement Association has nearly 21,000 residents in 7 subdivisions, 4,959 properties, non-gated, inside the city limits of San Antonio.

Yesterday, Saturday, 7/25, they held a “paint drive” to collect latex paint for the city.  The city then mixes and redistributes the paint free to folks fighting graffiti in their neighborhoods.

Here is a short video about their efforts…

KE5DFK (Carlos) and KE5HLS (Robert) under the Guadalupe Valley Amateur Radio Club call WB5LVI will operate from DL88 and DL89 August 21 thru August 26, 2009.

Bands:  6m 50.125 plus or minus 125Khz for the DL88 hunters.15m, 17m, 20m, 40m, 80m, 160m? SSB20m, 30m 40m PSK/RTTY. Two bands will be active at all times. Visitors welcome.

We will monitor the local 146.820 repeater with a 146.2 tone.   More info:  ke5hls@arrl.net or ke5dfk@yahoo.com   QSL:  SASE to the www.qrz.com address for WB5LVI

Information about the Bexar Operators Group, including what they have done and their planned events, can now be found at their new site: Bexar Operators Group – Home  

This club is an active amateur radio group and not a social club. Up coming events include participation in this year’s JOTA event which will focus on operating “green” with solar panels and wind turbines.

We also sponsor the annual “Jump Team Boot Camp”. All types of antenna testing and field operations are done in order to make members better operators in both contests and during emergency conditions.

This webpage also includes two links which will get you to W2IK’s old AOL webpages (45 of them) that were thought lost. Between the two you should find them all!

For further info, contact us through our new web page or at: W2IK@arrl.net

About 4 dozen hams showed up for the summer membership meeting of the San Antonio Repeater Organization tonight.  The venue was Martha’s Mexican Restaurant, on the corner of Huebner Road & Babcock Rd, on the NW side of San Antonio. 

Reports were made on the status of the various repeaters, what needed fixed and what needed upgraded.  Reports were made on a few past events, but the focus was more on what was coming up in the next few events regarding public service.   

A presentation was made by the La Vernia Wildwest Hammerfest bike ride to be held on September 19th, asking for SARO’s support.   They brought t-shirts from last year’s (canceled) event, to offer to those who would have worked it, had Hurricane Ike not caused a cancellation.

Heavy discussion held regarding the new requirement by the National MS needing volunteers to undergo a background check for criminal and drivers license records.  Most discussion focusing the the ability to do credit checks even though that type check wasn’t being paid for by the National MS.  The local BikeMS will be held October 3rd and 4th, running from San Antonio thru Seguin to New Braunfels, and back on day 2.  GVARC ham club has offered the use of their repeater system for this event, plus will try to get some ham volunteers to help work it.

At the July membership meeting of the Hill Country REACT Team held up in Bulverde, TX at the Bulverde VFD on Cougar Bend Rd & FM 1863, Wednesday night (07/22), the guest speaker was GVARC member Skip WB4DAD talking and demonstrating ways to learn CW and encouraging the members to give CW a try on the air.

You could tell by watching Skip, that he really enjoys his CW.   He demonstrated three different types of keyers, a couple of paddles and a straight key.

For more info about Hill Country REACT Team or their upcoming events, please visit their website at www.hillcountryreact.org or join their yahoo group “hillcountryreact”.

For all amateur operators: 

The maiden voyage of the Iowa QSO Party will occur on Saturday, October 17th running nine hours from 1400Z (9AM CDT) to 2300Z (6PM CDT). Prizes and certificates will be awarded to top scorers for instate mobile, instate fixed, and out of state fixed stations. Logs and summary sheets must be received on or before November 17th,2009.  Rules are available on the web page: http://www.wa0dx.org/iaqsoparty.html

Sponsoring the event will be the Ottumwa Amateur Radio Club. Working their club call, WA0DX, will earn a 100 point bonus. Special multipliers will be earned for working the three present or past Section Managers who live in the state (SM1, SM2, and SM3). Questions go to N0SM at ARRL.NET.

Note: While the website is live now, there may be some minor changes yet.  We should have things settled by August 15th.  

Joe Hoepfner, KE0J
ARRL Iowa Section ACC

Our regular readers will remember a posting we made earlier (June 12, 2009) about an Emergency Go-Kit Idea that involved some minor surgery to a Stanley Toolbox with wheels, by adding a couple of sealed lead acid batteries in the bottom compartment, a 12 volt 30 amp Pyramid power supply, a 300 watt DC to AC power converter, a home-brew battery charging circuit, etc.

I’ve made some more progress on this project, adding an external on/off  switch to control the exhaust / cooling fan on the side of the toolbox, and adding an external AC power plug on the other side to make it more convenient to plug in up to two AC devices to the emergency go-kit toolbox.   Of course, I suppose you could use a power strip to plug in more, but the circuit is limited to 15 amps and the converter will only handle 300 watts.  I’ve labeled the exterior plug warning of the limitations, and also have a surge reset button mounted nearby.

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