Title: ACTHA Competition and Benefit
Location: Hill Country State Natural Area – Bandera, TX
Description: When: June 12th and 13th
Where: Hill Country State Natural Area – Bandera, TX
What: ACTHA (American Competitive Trail Horse Association) Event – a not-for-profit event.

Details: We need 8 -10 radio operators each day.

Saturday, June 12th – event will run from 0900 to 1300hrs – lunch at 1400hrs – Breakfast for volunteers will be provided 0730. Proceeds benefit the AQHBA youth scholarship Program.

Sunday, June 13th – event runs from 1400hrs to 1700hrs – Breakfast at 0730, lunch at 1200hrs – The late start time is due to a nationwide event that is attempting to break a Guiness Book of World Records title. Proceeds from Sundays event benefit ACTHA Horse Rescue Operations.

ACTHA events judge the ability of a horse and rider to negotiate natural obstacles, handle standard task, and the overall condition of the horse. Although rare accidents and injuries do occur.

Our Task: as most know, cell phone coverage is slim to none, closer to none at the park. Our number one purpose is safety, secondary is to assist the Event Observers to track the participants through the course. Each course is approximately 7 miles long, with Saturdays course being of mild to moderate difficulty, and Sundays course utilizing the moderate to difficult terrain.

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Title: PedolPhest Bike Ride
Location: Selma, TX – Guadalupe, Bexar and Comal Counties
Link out: Click here
Description: Fellow Hams:

I have had the pleasure of working with most of you at many public service events (Bike to the Beach, Ride to the River, BPMS150, Water Safari, Bandera 100K Run, etc.) for several years, so when I was asked to organize amateur radio support for a new bike ride I accepted knowing that the local amateur radio community has a long history of supporting these events.

We have been called upon to support PedOLPHest, a bike ride similar in size to the Wildflower ride. More information about the ride itself can be found at www.pedolphest.com. The ride will have 4 routes, 15
mile, 30 mile, 60 mile, and 100 mile. It will have 8 breakpoints along the route and starts and finishes at OLPH church is Selma, TX.

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Frances Louise Draper, born December 21, 1938, passed on May 6, 2010. She was preceded by husband Bennie Sr., parents and 1 brother. Survived by children, Bennie Jr. (Judy), Barbara, Lee, Kenneth (Annie), Bobby (Gina), 2 brothers, 10 grandchildren, 6 great-grandchildren. Visitation will be May 12, 2010 from 4-8 at Funeral Caring USA 2200 NW Loop 410 San Antonio, TX 78230. Funeral Services by Pastor Timothy Soukup on May 13, 2010 at Our Savior Lutheran Church 11503 Vance Jackson San Antonio, TX 78230 at 10:00 am. Burial to follow at 3pm in Corpus Christi, TX.

Frances was a member of the SARO ham club.

On a personal note when organizing local MS150 rides I have counted on having Frances and Barbara working a breakpoint.  Frances will be missed, and I am sure I speak for the local ham community when I tell Barbara that she is in our thoughts and prayers.

June VHF QSO Party
 for details. In July of last year, we traveled to several counties during the CQ VHF Contest stopping to operate from 4 grid squares south and east of Bexar County. see: San Antonio Hams » Blog Archive » CQ VHF Contest 2009 W5BOG – Diary   If anyone is interested in joining me for this event, or would like to operate their own station during this contest along with me, feel free to email me at: alonestaryank@aol.com

No, not a magic trick or a hockey play, W2IK recently scored a “hat trick” by having top scores in three 2010 state QSO Party contests.

He scored tops in the country in the New Mexico QSO Party as an out-of-New Mexico mobile station, tops in the country in the Louisiana QSO Party event as a fixed, phone, out-of-state station and in the Idaho QSO Party had the top score from Texas, and may be tops in the country when the final scores are posted after the 25th of May.

 See the blog about  San Antonio Hams » Blog Archive » Little Contests For “Little Guns”  to see the basic operating techniques he used.

When: June 12th and 13th
Where: Hill Country State Natural Area – Bandera, TX
What: ACTHA (American Competitive Trail Horse Association) Event – a not-for-profit event.

Details: We need 8 -10 operators each day.

Saturday, June 12th – event will run from 0900 to 1300hrs – lunch at 1400hrs – Breakfast for volunteers will be provided 0730. Proceeds benefit the AQHBA youth scholarship Program.

Sunday, June 13th – event runs from 1400hrs to 1700hrs – Breakfast at 0730, lunch at 1200hrs – The late start time is due to a nationwide event that is attempting to break a Guiness Book of World Records title. Proceeds from Sundays event benefit ACTHA Horse Rescue Operations.

ACTHA events judge the ability of a horse and rider to negotiate natural obstacles, handle standard task, and the overall condition of the horse. Although rare accidents and injuries do occur.

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On Wednesday, April 14, 2010, AARO’s own Luke Ham (KF5CSK) achieved the Boy Scouts of America highest rank, Eagle Scout. 

Shown with Luke are his proud parents, David (KF5BGT and also an Eagle Scout) and Lisa Ham.   Click on photo for larger view.

Just spoke with Wade W5ERX during the REACT Meeting and learned he had taken down the 444.450 repeater which is located near Canyon Lake due to mechanical problems with the crystal.  Wade sent the crystal off to be rebuilt / repaired / replaced.    As soon as he receives the new part, he’ll get the repeater back on the air.  He anticipates this may take until the end of May, unless they get the crystal turned around sooner.

In the meantime, the GVARC 147.000 repeater in New Braunfels still has great coverage, and was recently repaired to fix a reported problem.  Chances are, we’ll be running the Tour de Cure event on May 22nd and 23rd using the GVARC 147.000 repeater as we did last year.

During tonight’s Bexar County ARES  Training Net,  Lothar briefly mentioned the garage door problems those of us living near the intersection of 151 and Potranco Road (San Antonio, TX) are having.    As Lothar correctly stated, the issue is a conflict between a new radio communications tower put up at the NSA facility being built on Military Drive and garage door openers in the vicinity.

The NSA tower works on the LMR 390 Mhz frequency, which is shared with older garage door openers, including, as it turns out, my own. As NSA has stated in public, they believe they have the legal basis for operating on this frequency, and do not intend to stop operating on this frequency.   So, for those of us with garage door openers operating at that frequency, it means that your remote may not open your garage door until you are very close to it. In my case, I actually had to park in my driveway, get out of my car, and activate the remote standing two feet from the garage door. A bit of an inconvenience.

The Genie GIRUD-1T Universal Dual Frequency Conversion Kit alleviates frequency issues from the recently implemented Land Mobile Radio (LMR) communications system. The LMR system is used by military bases across the U.S. and was implemented as part of the nation’s Homeland Security efforts.

Most newer garage door openers operate on the 315 Mhz frequency to avoid this conflict. So if you are having these issues and would like some resolution, you can do one of two things: 1.) Purchase a new garage door opener that operates at that frequency, or 2.) Install a converter which will allow your existing garage door opener to operate on the new frequency.

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If you haven’t been to ARRL’s website lately, you don’t know about it’s new look and feel.  They have spent some serious effort (read that as paid a bunch of money to somebody other than me)  to build a site that lets visitors sign up for a free trial before joining ARRL.

http://www.arrl.org is the direct  link.

Your membership dollars at work… 

We’ve heard of a few glitches in their system, but that is to be expected on any new major redesign like what was involved here.   

As a webmaster who manages over 80 website / domain names, and has been designing webites since 1995, we say to ARRL “Job well done!”.

Of course if they had let me help… 🙂