San Antonio Hams

Chaparral Amateur Radio Club a.k.a. Guadalupe County ARES will be holding a License Test session on the evening of May 11th, after our normally scheduled meeting.

Currently we are planning to have available tests for Technician and General. If you would like to test for Extra, please notify Ray Mueller – AE5HN at raym701 at yahoo dot com, so we can plan accordingly. The session will start a 19:00 hrs (7:00 p.m.)

The address is 415 E. Donegan – Seguin, TX 78155
Chaparral ARC holds its monthly meeting on the 2nd Tuesday each month at 18:00hrs! All licenced Amateur Radio Operators and those interested in becoming one are invited to attend!

Time to take a look at the events calendar once again.  Did you know we post a regular calendar of events on this site, and let other hams post club events directly?  If your club has an event they want other Hams to know about, or want help with, post it here for free.  Contact the webmaster, Lee N5NTG, to get a userID upgraded to let you do this.

2010 Events Happening Soon!

• April 17-18th – BPMS150 – Houston – Austin Bicycle event, 2 days.  Contact Milton N5HMJ for details.  Almost to late for new volunteers, but hey, give it a try!
• April 16th – Belton Ham Expo -Contact www.tarc.org
• April 16-17th – Texas State Ladies Championship Chili Cook-off – Starke Park, Seguin, TX. Help out Friday evening, Saturday daytime.  Easy work.  Contact Louis K1STX
• April 18th – Fiesta 100 Bicycle event, Contact Gordon K5SUZ
• April 24th – Canyon Lake Chamber of Commerce BBQ – Contact Charlie KC5NKK
• May 1st – 5K Run @ Bulverde Senior Citizens Ctr – Contact Wade W5ERX
• May 1st – Special Olympics Spring Games – Harlendale Stadium – Contact Lee N5NTG
• May 22-23rd – Tour de Cure Bicycle event, San Antonio to Austin, 2 days.  – Contact Lee N5NTG
• June 11-12th – Plano HamCom
• June 12th – Texas Water Safari 
• June 26-27th – Field Day Weekend – various locations
• July 4th – Fourth of July Parade – Startzville – Contact Wade W5ERX

The Office for Communication (Ofcom) today announced plans to progress with the UK’s digital switchover by pushing for all UK amateur radio repeaters to switch to digital by the end of 2011. The switch is being driven on by the increased demand for radio frequencies for use during the 2012 London Olympics.

While the announcement this morning came as a shock to many of the UK’s amateur radio users it was welcomed by the Radio Society of Great Britian (RSGB). A spokesperson for the society commented “Amateur radio is a thriving hobby in the UK and as such it embraces technological advances which promote the hobby”. It is understood that the RSGB are to work closely with radio manufactures to ensure that the switch over can be achieved in such a way to ensure minimal disruption to its membership. A spokesperson for Icom (UK), manufactures of digital radios in the UK stated “Digital radio technology has been available to radio amateurs across the globe for several years and Icom are proud to have lead the way with their D-STAR radio system.”

This report came to us from the Royal Society of Great Britain, which has since retracted the story after learning it was an April 1st joke.

Medina County Rest Area, Hwy 90 west of DeHanis

April 10, 2010 – Noon until all the antennas and equipment are stowed.

Come to the Medina County Rest Stop; U.S. Hwy 90, approximately 40 miles west of the Loop 410 and Hwy 90 intersection; approximately 7 miles west of D’Hanis.

Here is their PDF flier for the event.  2010 Spring Field-Nic

Contact Walter  Hock KK5LO for details kk5lo@swbell.net

The Bexar Operators Group (W5BOG) has unveiled it’s location for the 2010 ARRL Field Day event held on the last full weekend in June.

We will be operating from Choke Canyon State Park in the “Calliham Unit” based in a shelter (cabin). In keeping with the original philosophy of what Field Day should be, we will be testing several new antenna designs and operating our rigs using deep cycle batteries charged by several banks of solar panels. If there is enough wind, we will erect our wind turbine to generate power.

Our operating class will be either 1B Batt. or 1A Batt. Nothing will be pre-planned as this is a test of our emergency communications deployment capabilities. The last time we were at this location for a “Field Day” event was in 2007 when we made several hundred contacts using just a basic “Inverted V” antenna. (2009 – Lost Maples State Park, 2008 – Mustang Island) 

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If you’ve read an earlier blog I posted: San Antonio Hams » Blog Archive » Little Contests For “Little Guns” , I mentioned about studying both the distance away from your anticipated contacts and propagation characteristics. When I worked both the New Mexico QSO Party and the Louisiana QSO Party, I determined my best course of action was to stay on the lower bands, concentrating on 40 meters until way after sunset when I switched to collect a few Qs on 80 meters and then back to 40.

However, this philosophy would not work with the Idaho QSO Party which I intended to compete in. Again, I’d be a low power, single op in this endeavor and being so far away from the state I wanted to work, I’d written off being awarded top operator from out of the state of Idaho. Being so far away from Idaho, I needed to rethink how I’d operate. Attempting to use propagation on my side, and in the time the contest would be starting, I decided that my best bet would be to start out on 15 meters which is always a good bet when working stations 1000+ miles away. My back up band would, of course, be 20 meters.

Hi Lee,

I am trying to locate a ham by the name of William (Bill) Meiners. Bill was located in San Antonio and may well be a SK. His wife was named Loretta, and Bill had a number of children, any one of which may be a HAM. Bill was my Elmer down in the Rio Grande Valley back in the 1950s. About the time he and his family moved to SA, I went into the service, and lost contact with them.

I have looked at the ARRL web site and found on active license for Bill, thus the probability of him being a SK.

Bill was chief engineer for KRIO in McAllen and went to SA as a station engineer for one of the radio stations. Any information on Bill or any of his family would be much appreciated

73

Jack T. Ward Jr. N5TLW
sjward@swbell.net

Response:

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 The WPX contest is based on an award offered by CQ Magazine for working all prefixes. Held on the last weekend of March (SSB) and May (CW), the contest draws thousands of entries from around the world.

This is a great chance to get lots of “new ones” in your log and have fun while doing so. You don’t need to be an expert to join in and you will be competing on a level playing field as there are many categories to compete in such as low power with a simple antenna, etc.  Go to their website: http://www.cqwpx.com/ to learn more about the contest and the operating categories.

It’s a good “tune up” towards “Field Day” as it will help sharpen your ears in picking out weak stations or stations amid interference.

I will be operating as a single operator SSB and later on CW and hope you can work me!

Bob W2IK

The Austin Amateur Radio Club has announced that the 146.940 repeater will require a 107.2hz CTCSS (PL) tone to engage the repeater beginning April 1, 2010.

The AARC repeater is currently the last 146.940 carrier squelch repeater in Texas.

This is NOT an April Fools Day Joke, thus the reason for advance announcements far and wide.  You can program your radio now for using the 107.2 tone, because it will still work fine between now and then.

The repeater will also transmit a 107.2hz CTCSS (PL) tone for users wishing to use the tone squelch feature in their radios which allows them to hear only the Austin repeater.

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