San Antonio Hams

Below are a series of pictures from the Bexar Operators Group 160 meter CQ WW SSB contest. 

We traveled to the Calliham Unit of Choke Canyon State Park, about 15 miles west of the town of Three Rivers, which is about 80 miles south of San Antonio.

After checking in, we went to our screened shelter (cabin) only to find that they all had been completely refurbished since our last visit. All the cabins had large air conditioners and two beds! No more blowing up our queen sized air mattress or lugging our window AC unit in the summer.

As you can see, they allow pets, and our two dogs quickly staked out a bed they wanted. I began the task of setting up the radio gear while my XYL, KD5YTN, Krissy, completed her chores of getting the rest of the camping gear out of the truck and assembled.  

We had a problem and had a tough choice to make. It was a very windy day on Friday, with gusts over 25 mph. We decided to wait and see if the wind would die down, as was predicted for Saturday. So, we erected a 160 meter dipole antenna to work the first half of the contest. I would have preferred a loop, but we had neither the real estate nor the time to plot one out and set it up.
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Title: Houston-Austin BP150 Bicycle Event 2 Day
Location: Houston to LaGrange to Austin
Link out: Click here
Description: Info available from Milton N5HMJ or Lee N5NTG who are coordinating a team of hams from San Antonio to help support this worthy event. MS lets us rent our vans or trucks in San Antonio on Friday, equip and drive to Houston, pays for our fuel, provides a hotel room on Friday night in Houston, a cabin (shared) to sleep in Saturday night in LaGrange. They provide us free t-shirts, food, etc., and take real good care of their ham volunteers. Event is usually over around 5pm (or earlier) on Sunday evening.
Start Date: 2010-04-16
End Date: 2010-04-18

Title: Skywarn Training
Location: University of Incarnate Word, Lecture Hall
Link out: Click here
Description: The University of the Incarnate Word. the National Weather Service and the Urban Science Initiative, Inc. will join forces to present the fourth annual Severe Weather Conference on Friday, March 12 and Saturday, March 13, 2010 in the Bonilla Science Hall on the UIW campus.

There is no registration fee for the conference. We ask that you register so that we can provide you with conference materials and seating. You may register by downloading the registration form and faxing it to 210-493-8533 or by email to alex@urbansciencelive.org. We ask that you make your registration no later than March 1, 2010.

You may also register on-site the day of the conference however, we can not guarantee conference materials or available seating.
Start Date: 2010-03-12
End Date: 2010-03-13

Title: One Day Technician License Crash Course
Location: University of the Incarnate Word
Link out: Click here
Description: Lecture Hall, Bonilla Science Building, University of the Incarnate Word, 4301 Broadway, San Antonio, TX 78209

Sponsored by AARO Ham Club – Per Person Cost: $40 – Includes continental breakfast, lunch and fee for one 35-item, multiple-choice exam given at the end of the day. Does not include the study book.

To Register: Call (210)522-3008 or (210)680-6841
or E-mail jwallace at (@) swri.org

Anyone wanting testing at the end of the day, can pay the test fee for upgrading, etc. Please RSVP
Start Time: 08:00
Date: 2010-03-06

The Bexar Operators Group will be “Flying Pink” with a 9 foot pink weather balloon with an attached pink (ok, reddish pink) 260 foot vertical wire antenna during the 160 meter contest this weekend to show our support for breast cancer awareness.

We had a choice of balloons to purchase and chose the pink colored ones (boy, do they look small un inflated) and even chose the pink topped helium tank when offered a choice of others.

Pictures of our contest operation at Choke Canyon State Park’s “Calliham Unit” will be posted next week.

If you can hear us on 160 meters (probably around 1.85 – 1.9 mhz after sunset until dawn), please either post us on “DX Summit” or other internet resources or make a QSO with us!

A large, stamped -self addressed envelope, sent to the QRZ address of W5BOG will net stations contacting us a special QSL certificate showing our support for breast cancer awareness.

Bob W2IK – W5BOG

The only good way is to use a full size antenna. It’s simple physics. I don’t care what mis-information you might have read or been told or what “miracle” antenna companies might claim.

HAITI: ECOM Operatoins appear to be slowing down somewhat.  The hospital ship USNS COMFORT is no longer accepting trauma patients, at the request of the Haitian government, and is preparing to return to the U.S.

The University of Miami Mediashare Operation has beem moved from the International Airport to another area, so that the airport could open for regular commercial traffic.

Our MARS volunteers continue to provide support to the effort and will, for a while yet.   Keep them in your thoughts, as they are in a less secure area now that they have moved off the International Airport.

Title: Chaparral ARC License Test Session
Location: Seguin
Description: 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 test for Technician and General. If you would like to test for Extra, please notify Ray Mueller – AE5HN, 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 licences Amateur Radio Operators and those interested in becoming one are invited to attend!
Start Time: 19:00
Date: 2010-05-11

Wade KE5ZUO on Talk-in, JC Smith N5RXS, wanting to resell empty tables

San Antonio Radio Club’s event chairman, JC Smith N5RXS, reported on the air, Saturday morning at 6:15am, prior to opening the doors, that all vendor tables had been sold out already!

Wow!  In fact, JC placed several calls were placed on the air searching for hams who had rented tables, but hadn’t yet shown up to claim them, so that he could resell those empty tables to folks who forgot to advance register!  Amazingly enough, it seems that some hams will pay to rent a vendor table, just to get in the door before the general admission, so they can scout out the better deals and buy before the crowd starts rolling in.  This practice is discouraged, but it happens, and then it leaves empty tables that could have been used by another ham.

One of the challenges we faced this year, was the SARO 146.94 repeater being used for talk-in, failed around 6:20am, just after we had started making announcements.    We were actually then hitting the Austin’s .94 repeater, so we changed to simplex and kept on going.    Bob K5AUW set up his mobile for crossband on simplex in the beginning, then we changed over to using my radios (as discussed later).  The .94 San Antonio repeater stayed down the rest of the day.

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