San Antonio Hams

The Alamo Area Repeater Organization (AARO) held their monthly membership meeting on the NW side of town in Martha’s Mexican Restaurant, corner of Babcock Rd & Huebner Rd.  3 dozen plus hams gathered to hear about what happened on Field Day, discuss the possibility of being becoming an ARRL Affiliated Club (they voted to do it), and listen to Lee Cooper W5LHC of Austin, who talked about recent legisture that might affect ham radio; what passed, what didn’t pass, and what is still pending.

Most of you missed tonight’s ARES meeting that was held in a conference room inside the secure City’s EOC building over in Brooks City Base on the SE side of San Antonio. 

About 2 dozen hams attended to do a debriefing regarding Field Day 2009 (i.e. discuss what went right, what went wrong, and how to make next year’s event even better.)   A common request was to “fix the outdoor A/C or move the event to October.”  In other words, it was hot out there that weekend.   We also discussed possible on-the-air training net topics to be covered over the upcoming 60 days during the Tuesday night training nets.

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GVARC reports that they did about double the number of QSO’s during this year’s FD as compared with last year, but then again, last year was a last minute shuffle from their “usual” place at the Comal County Fairgrounds over to Mike’s house on River Road with less than 2 hours to get set up for FD, and perhaps some members didn’t know how to find the new place (which was really comfy by the way).  Here’s GVARC’s Field Day results: 350 QSOs for 593 points ( last year was 184 QSOs for 234 points ). Plus the mutiplier of course. 

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Under the direction of Mike, AB5EB, another JOTA (Jamboree On The Air) operation is scheduled to take place this October at the Overlook Point near the Canyon Lake dam in Texas to show scouts what amateur radio is all about. Planning will show the diversity of amateur radio as scouts talk to other scouts from all over the world. 

The amateur radio operators, featuring Mike, AB5EB, Carlos, KE5DFK, Bob, W2IK, and others are ready to set up and operate several stations  using several modes, such as voice, morse code (CW), digital and slow-scan television. Additional hams who would like to be a part in helping out scouts should contact Mike at: ab5ebdxer@gmail.com 

Other events will be  offered such as two of W2IK’s “McGyver” antenna building sessions where scouts build actual antennas from scrap materials and use them to make contacts. A merit badge class given by Mike, AB5EB might also be planned. Still in it’s planning stages, Mike wants this JOTA to be even better than the event held last year at this location where over 70 scouts attended. Stay tuned as the planning cements into another great JOTA event!

KARS has filed the following ARRL Field Day Report for 2009

1. Field Day Call Used: KB5TX          GOTA Station Call:   n/a
2. Club or Group Name: KARS
3. Number of Participants: 18
4. Number of transmitters in simultaneous operation: 5
5. Entry Class: Check only one.    X A. Club or non-club portable
6. Check All power sources used.  X Generator
7. ARRL / RAC Section:   STX
8. Total CW QSO’s: 342 X 2 = Total CW QSO points: 684
9. Total Digital QSO’s: 0 X 2 = Total Digital QSO points: 0
10. Total Phone QSO’s: 247 X 1 = Total Phone QSO points: 247
11. Total QSO points: 931
12. Power Multiplier      X 150 Watts or less = 2
13. Power Multiplier: 2
14. Claimed Score: 931  (Should this be 931 x2 = 1862 with power multiplier added?)

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Today was the 19th Annual 4th of July Parade at Canyon Lake, held in Startzville, TX, and sponsored by the Startzville VFW Post.  And of course  the members of Hill Country REACT were there helping in the Staging Area to get the parade off to a smooth, on-time start. 

In the past few years, we’ve had the help from some other area hams, and this year was no exception. 

Hams from San Antonio, the Guadalupe Valley Amateur Rado Club (New Braunfels), and Hayes Caldwell County ARES group (San Marcos) showed up to assist REACT with this fun event.   Read the rest of this entry »

The much shortened version of my full 3-day Jump Team Boot Camp which was offerred for a July date  has been cancelled due to not enough interested parties signing up.

This was to include such sections as site survey before structures are erected, sheltering and how/where to properly put them up, station operating posts, antenna building and erection, power generation, food support/dining areas, message handling, troubleshooting your station, propagation, water purification, basic survival techniques, creating a complete EmComm cache of gear to have on the ready, etc.

All participants would have been exposed to every phase so they would have been able to “do it all” from scratch in case of an emergency, with session taught by a team of experienced communicators and also survival experts from the military.

Note: My full 3-day boot-camp is still being held in late October. We will go through the same  steps needed to set up and run a complete emergency communications complex at a location where nothing would be standing and included will be a comprehensive book/guide enabling people to start their own emergency communications jump team in their area.

Bob W2IK

iBCNU is an APRS GPS position reporting and text-messaging application for the Apple iPhone.

When position reporting is enabled, the application will periodically send out location of your iPhone using either 3G or WiFi network and iPhone’s built in GPS receiver.

The rate at which position reports are sent out is adjustable. Once the GPS information is in the APRS-IS system, it is shared between all users and you can track yourself or track your friends using this or one of the many APRS mapping sites.

When used as a text-messaging tool, iBCNU will let you send and receive messages using the APRS-IS system. You can send short (approximately 512 character) messages to your ham friends for free.

This item is apparently available, or will be availble soon,  for sale thru the Apple Itunes Store for $1.99.     

I did a search at store.apple.com for “iBCNU” (I be seeing you?), “APRS”, “Amatuer Radio” and didn’t find it listed as active.   Reading the developer’s log revealed that he ha been experiencing some “technical difficulties” meeting Apple’s “human interface standards” and other “issues” which have delayed the release of an updated version to the initial release, or any of us from downloading it.   (Note: I don’t have an iPhone anyway. – Lee)

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Don’t know much about what happened out in Kendall County (Boerne) at this year’s Field Day event, but judging from the photos that Jim Mastrogiovani KK5RZ posted, it looks like they had fun doing it…  (That’s Jim with the cigar in the photo to the right.)

This location typically has lots of shade, with a huge metal roof overhead, but not sure how cool it was underneath.

Anyway, here are some of the photos from the KB5TX Kendall Amateur Radio Society Field Day event. 

Enjoy….

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I am looking for an electronics club in San Antonio.    I can’t seem to find one on the net… been looking and looking. I am interested in fixing little gadgets with circuit boards and the like, if anyone can help me or direct me to aid my quest I would appreciate it. Thank you!