San Antonio Hams

Hill Country REACT Team #4804

Visit us at www.HillCountryREACT.org

We would like top take a chance to invite you to attend the next meeting of Hill Country REACT Team #4804 to hear our guest speaker Skip Stem/WB4DAD talk about CW Operations!

Skip is along time CW Operator and has been working CW on the HF bands for a number of years.  Many of us learned our CW years ago to upgrade our licenses but few us have taken to the air and used this skill.  And many new operators, despite the fact that CW is no longer a requirement to hold an amateur license desire to learn this mode.  So come one, come all and find out what CW is all about!

We meet at the Bulverde Fire Station on Cougar Bend in downtown Bulverde at 1900 (7:00 PM) on the fourth Wednesday of the month.  This month that will be July 22nd.

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Title: Chaparral ARC / GCARES
Location: Guadalupe County Emergency Management Office – 415 E. Donegan – Seguin
Description: Monthly meeting of the Chaparral Amateur Radio Club a.k.a. Guadalupe County ARES. All licensed Amateurs and prospective licensees are welcome to attend!
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2009-09-08

Title: Bandera 100K Ultra-Marathon
Location: Hill Country State Natural Area – Bandera, TX
Link out: Click here
Description: Hill Country REACT and San Antonio Region Amateurs have provided Comms support for this event over the last 5 years. There are 5 fixed and a couple of rover positions to be filled over the 24 hr event. Typically 10-14 operators are needed! Safety, Supply and Tracking logistics are involved. For the 2010 event we are adding Packet to facilitate the tracking logistics, and with some technical help, will provide live internet updates to the families and friends of the participants at home! For more information or to volunteer, contact Louis Upton @mailto:k1stx@yahoo.com (210-687-4347) or Gary Tangrady @ k5gst@live.com. Thank You!
Start Date: 2010-01-09
Start Time: 06:30
End Date: 2010-01-10
End Time: 07:30

Title: CARC / GCARES Monthly Meeting
Location: 415 E. Donegan – Seguin
Description: Monthly meeting of the Chaparral Amateur Radio Club a.k.a. Guadalupe County ARES. All licensed Amateurs and prospective licensees are welcome to attend!
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2009-07-14

Tonight was the big night, the night that all three candidates running for the vacancy of ARRL South Texas Section Manager would speak in person before the San Antonio Radio Club during their regular monthly membership meeting.  

Amazingly enough, all three candidates showed up on time and spoke, along with current SM Ray Taylor N5RAV who is “retiring” from that position (with no pension provided), and SEC Mike Schwartz, KG5TL.

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This was from a ham out of the Houston, TX area. Every area is having record power being drawn from their grids due to the 100+ degree temps. – Lee N5NTG

I heard on the radio this morning that we set a record in Texas yesterday.  The record was we taxed our electrical grid to its highest point ever.  

They continued to say that between the hours of 3pm and 7pm was the peak time and we should cut back a little. 

Try not to use large appliances between 3pm and 7pm and don’t turn your air down to 72 when it’s 100+ outside.  It won’t get there. 

So to make this amateur related, turn off the amps.  🙂

 Bill Rimmer, N5LYG
n5lyg@n5lyg.org

And I got this link off the Bexar County ARES list, linked to the Public Utilities Commission.

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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!