San Antonio Hams

Santa used Paul Guido’s Vision motorcycle on Saturday December 19th, 2009 to deliver gifts to seven family’s in San Antonio. 
Here is a video from the local station.  Click here, or on the image to play…

It is too funny that they called my Vision a Harley in the title.  It was 65 degrees and Santa was sweating quite a bit in his suit.

Background on Elf Louise The Elf Louise Christmas Project is dedicated to providing a little bit of joy to Bexar County’s (San Antonio) less fortunate children.  The project began in 1969 when our founder, Louise Locker, was a student at Trinity University in San Antonio.

She found that for many San Antonio families, Christmas just did not exist.   Louise began to look for a way to provide a few Christmas presents to some of these children. That first year, with the help of a friend, she collected gifts for children in 13 families.

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Calling all Traffic Net Control Operators!

The Central Texas Traffic Net needs your help.

Please contact Jeremy Davenport (KE5ELI) jeremy@heitx.com if you are interested in continuing to be, or becoming a Net Control Operator for the Central Texas Traffic Net (CTTN).

Stay tuned for the new net frequency in January. We’re looking at trying a couple other area wide repeaters, or using IRLP to link some together, to restore the former multi-county coverage area we used to enjoy on the old 147.14 repeater.

GENERAL CLASS LICENSE COURSE

A Saturday General Class License course, with examinations offered following the course, will be given by Atascosa County Amateur Radio Club, WA5AR, on Saturday’s Jan. 30th, Feb. 6th, Feb. 13th, and Feb. 20th from 10:00 A,M. until 3:00 P.M. with lunch from 12 noon until 1:00 P.M.

Classes will be conducted at the old Atascosa County Jail, 711 Broadway, Jourdanton, TX. (1/2 hour south of San Antonio on SH16 [Poteet Highway]). 

Study book cost of $20.95 and FCC examination is $14.00. Bring photo copies of your current license and photo ID. 

All classes of hams and non-hams are welcome to attend as a review at no charge. 

Contacts: Atascosa and surrounding counties: Hugo South,KK5BZ, (830)281-2408 or hugokk5bz@aol.com; Bexar County: Bob Rodriguez, K5AUW, (210)887-6618 or bobrod@flash.net.

San Antonio ham, W2IK, wins top honors, and this plaque, for his 2009 efforts.

Fellow Hams —

Happy Holidays!  I’m emailing you, as participants of last year’s NMQP, to announce the 2010 New Mexico QSO Party.  You are invited to participate in 2010’s event, which will be sponsored by the Valencia County Amateur Radio Association, and take place Sunday, February 7 from 8:00am MST until 8:00pm MST.

Last year marked the return of the New Mexico QSO Party after a brief hiatus.  Improved promotion, rules, and awards for the winners of various operating categories resulted in 127 participants…plus probably many more who didn’t submit their logs.  Specifically, 44 participated within New Mexico (including 7 mobile stations who activated a combined 24 of New Mexico’s 33 counties), and 73 participated from elsewhere in the United States.  Ten DX stations — from Canada, Lithuania, Azores, Czech Republic, Germany, and Romania — also participated and submitted logs.

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Okay, the long wait is finally over!   We’ve compressed 24 hours of operation down to about 5 minutes, without using the fast forward button.  Amazing, but true!  Of course since we weren’t personally there the whole time to take photos and videos of every single operator, we weren’t able to include more than the three operators shown in the video (recorded live) plus a few others that had their photos taken and forwarded to us.

Most of the footage in the video was provided by Lee N5NTG, with some by Bob W2IK and Wade W5ERX.

Here is the YouTube link to this video…

Here are some photos taken during the 2009 Skywarn Recognition Day during the operations held at the Austin / San Antonio National Weather Service office in New Braunfels…  We’re working on a video as we type this blog entry, so check back later to see some area hams working the bands, without doing Kareoke…  See Video Here..

The following 9 hams worked at this year’s 24 hour event locally…

• Wade W5ERX  – REACT / GVARC
• Louis K1STX  – REACT / Chaparral ARC
• Bob W2IK   – Bexar Operators Group
• JC N5RXS  – SARC
• Pat AD5BR  – REACT
• Lee N5NTG  – REACT
• Gary K5GST  – REACT / GVARC
• Jeremy KE5ELI  – Chaparral ARC
• Al KE6LGE  – REACT
• Wade KE5ZOU – REACT

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1) Object: This is a friendly meeting on the air using straight keys. The object is to simply have fun and enjoy making CW QSOs, preferably with a manual sending device. Any CW is permissible, but straight keys are preferred. Many stations also enjoy using vintage gear, but this is not required. Break out those old J-38s and break the rust off!

2) Date and Time: Every January 1 from 0000 UTC through 2359 UTC.

3) Exchange: Straight Key Night is not a contest; enjoy making leisurely QSOs with no special exchange. Participants are encouraged to call CQ with “CQ SKN” to attract attention.

4) Reporting: Send in a list of stations worked, along with your vote for Most Interesting QSO and Best Fist. Email entries go to straightkey@arl.org; paper entries may be sent to ARRL Straight Key Night, 225 Main Street, Newington, CT 06111.

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Hill Country REACT Team is the sponsor of a new Ham Radio Repeater in the Canyon Lake area. 

The repeater is located about a mile southwest of Startzville and the antenna is up at about 1670 feet above sea level.  The antenna was measured as being about 390 feet up in the air on the tower, and the base of the tower is at 1280 feet above sea level.   

The repeater frequency is 444.450 mHz, positive offset, and with a 114.8 PL tone.  The repeater is intended to be for open use by all hams.

Testing has shown excellent coverage from north San Antonio up to south Austin, and all points between, using mobile radios.    The Trustee is Wade W5ERX, currently the president of Hill Country REACT.   He had the assistance of a couple other hams, including the newly appointed Comal County EC, Don Kirchner W5DK, and Gene Rowell WA5PAX, to build /prepare the repeater and finally install it at its new home.  The repeater is a coordinated frequency with the Texas VHF-FM Society and tower hosting is being provided by BKT Towers.

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Just announced today on the South Texas ARES Email List…

 I’m pleased to announce that Don Kirchner W5DK has stepped up to become EC for Comal county.   Thanks Don!

Tom Whiteside, N5TW
South Texas ARES Section Emergency Coordinator

Webmaster note – To learn more about Don, view his video on YouTube shown below… (just kidding, but Don is well known for helping out with the MS150, Tour de Cure, maintenance for multiple area repeaters and EOC installations, including the newest repeater at Canyon Lake on 444.450. – Lee N5NTG)

The busy ham radio operators down at the San Antonio – Austin National Weather Service office in New Braunfels, TX are using the club call sign KD5UMW on the air, using 20/40/80 meters HF, VHF, UHF, Echolink, IRLP, and who knows what other modes?  I know that Skywarn has established standard modes / frequencies to be used, but we aren’t limited to just those.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr/hamradio/

With the inclement weather in the area, operators may be tasked with gathering actual weather info during the event.  So if we are asked for help, lets do all we can.  For those of you working longer shifts you might want to bring food if you think you will want to eat.  Restaurants are a not all that close to the NWS. 

Paul would like to keep operators inside the Weather Service to 3 at a time.  There should be times that we may have 4, so this would be a good time to give Bob a break as he is working the whole event.    Please bring a headset if you have one as we need to keep things fairly quiet inside.  If there are any questions please contact me.

 Bob W2IK has generously offered to handle QSL cards for the event (an SASE will be required) and the KD5UMW QRZ info will be used. 

For those that may need the address:
2090 AIRPORT RD NEW BRAUNFELS, TX 78130 USA

Thanks to all of you,

Wade (w5erx@arrl.net)