San Antonio Hams

Field Day 2009 is June 27 and 28, and this year’s event promises to be a memorable one for San Antonio.

This year, a huge, multi-club Field Day site will be sponsored by the Bexar County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) with participation by members of the Alamo Area Radio Organization (AARO), the San Antonio Radio Club (SARC), Radio Operators of South Texas (ROOST) plus several other San Antonio area amateur radio groups (SARO, REACT, Baptist Men, etc.).

Field Day will be held at the San Antonio Fire Department Training Academy at Highway 151 and Callaghan Road, near Southwest Research Institute.

All amateurs and their families are invited to participate, regardless of club affiliation. New hams and prospective hams are especially welcomed. The event is also open to the general public, and there will be a “Get On The AIR (GOTA)” station available for unlicensed individuals to make some Field Day contacts.

Eric KD5YZU

We’ve just learned the bad news that Denny Findley KD5YRR has passed away.  Denny suffered a heart attack and was declared deceased at 4pm on Friday, May 8th.  

Denny  was best known for his laugh, generous spirit, distinctive voice on the radio, driving a convertible and smoking cigars out on the back patio of his house while talking on the AARO radio nets.  

He held a general class ham license, and was a member of AARO.  His “day job” was providing chaplain services at various prisons.

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Title: Field Nic This Saturday May 9th US Hwy 90 West of D’Hanis
Location: US Hwy 90 Rest Area just West of D’Hanis, TX
Link out: Click here

Description: JOIN US for a “Field Nic” this Saturday May 9 from 11am ’til 4pm at the US Hwy 90 Rest Area just West of D’Hanis, TX Hosted by the Medina County Amateur Radio Club. Come on out and see K5AUW Bob Rod\’s fully portable Emergency Amateur Radio station. Bring a lawn chair, some sandwiches, soft drinks, and enjoy the HAM fellowship.

Walter Hock, KK5LO

p.s. “Field Nic” is a mini Field Day set up.
Start Time: 11:00
Date: 2009-05-09
End Time: 16:00

One of the reasons some hams don’t wish to participate in amateur radio contests is that they believe they can never win a top spot using simple equipment against thousands of stations.

There are several ways to answer this.

One, you aren’t competing against the big stations in most contests as they usually break down the entries in to level playing fields such as entries for high and low power levels, etc.

Second, you should be thinking of your own contest operation as a challenge to yourself and not to others, to see how well you can do based upon the set up you have and your choice of bands based on propagation.

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Dear Fellow Hams!  Just in case you were unaware of this free source of information about ham radio hardware “fixes”, I chose to share this recently received electronic newsletter from www.mods.dk to which I subscribe.

While the site is hosted in Germany, the site is written in English.  I’ve found lots of hard to find manuals for obscure radios, or current radios.  And if you wanted to modify a radio, but didn’t know how, they usually have the instructions.  Of course, I’m not trying to encourage anyone to make illegal mods, or to use their transmitter in an illegal fashion.  But there are legit reasons for being able to receive or transmit out of what was “normal” when a rig was built, such as the 60 meter band that was recently opened for hams to use (few years ago).   Many older HF rigs won’t go there without a mod, like the  ICOM 706MKII-G, etc.

Anyway… Here is the newsletter I just received today.  If you find it interesting, please visit their website and sign up for your own copy.  It only comes out every 2 or 3 months.

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Title: Smithville Hamfest
Location: Bastrop TX
Link out: Click here
Description: Smithville Hamfest – Riverbend Park @ Bastrop
145.350(-)114.8Hz
443.750(+)114.8Hz

Start Time: 08:00
Date: 2009-05-16
End Time: 12:00

Apparently the 7290 Traffic Net also hold their event there, and they had a better map and directions on their site. Here is image of map.

Title: 5k Run For The Hills
Location: Bulverde Senior Citizens Center
Description: 5k Run to benefit the Bulverde Senior Citizens Center. Ham radio support coordinated by Hill County REACT. Contact Gary K5GST – k5gst@live.com
Start Time: 8:00
Date: 2009-04-27
End Time: 11:00

Title: San Antonio Special Olympics Games
Location: Harlendale Stadium
Description: San Antonio Special Olympics Spring Games for Area 20 -Contact Lee N5NTG @ info@sanantoniohams.org for info
Date: 2009-04-27

The original article was emailed to me from WServerNews, dealt with “cloud computing” and the danger of relying soley upon having your data “out there” in the Internet, vulnerable to such disruptions…   Something my company, Digital Fortress, also deals with on a daily basis, called “business continuity planning” or “building a Plan B”.  

But the article goes on to talk about how some hospitals dealt with their crisis, by calling out the ham radio operators….. ta da!  (The link in the quoted extract below, links to an ARRL article that goes into more details about ham radio involvement – Lee)

Realizing that they’d need more two-way radio, authorities dispatched police to wake up the emergency coordinator of the regional ham radio club, and escort him to the community hospital with his equipment. Area hams dispatched ambulances and doctors, arranged for essential supplies, and relayed emergency communications out of the area to those with working telephones.

Here is the article, with a link at the bottom to the full story.   Read and follow the link if you are interested in it…

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Maryanne N5MYN gave me some of the photos she took, lots of scenery photos, a couple of rainbows caught by her camera, and misc rainy or not so rainy photos. Enjoy…

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