San Antonio Hams

The Dec 2nd AARC Christmas Party was a real treat for the 80 plus attendees.  Great food, friends, family, new faces… More details in this week’s SwapNet newsletter. Now, for the important announcement every stakeholder wants to know,”Who the heck won the IC-7000???”

Thanks to all who bought the 220 tickets, the REAL winner of AARC’s IC-7000 raffle is K6RV Don Schliesser from Cedar Park, TX.
Jeff Schmidt N5MNW

Basic talks are underway to help our “Wounded Warriors” find a new path within the military, unencumbered by their physical restraints. Bob Hejl, W2IK – NNN0KSI (MARS Ecom), who works at CFI (Center For The Intrepid) at BAMC/ Ft. Sam, has begun discussions with officials at BAMC and CFI for ways in which our soldiers can redirect their abilities by using amateur radio as a stepping stone with their next goal being communications careers within the armed forces or in the private sector after their military careers are completed.

Planned are a special events/demo station so soldiers can see the possibilities of communications and the vital roles they can assume during an emergency or in everyday military communications work. Tri- Service MARS operations will also be integrated so they can get an actual “taste” of  military communications in a relaxed atmosphere.

An amateur radio course will be offered with actual “hands on” operation using W2IK’s portable MARS Ecom station. After the classes have been completed, there will be on base testing so many can obtain their amateur radio licenses.

If any local ham or group is interested in this project, please write W2IK at alonestaryank@aol.com.

I recently received an unsolicited official looking manila envelope in the mail (not e-mail) from the Amateur Radio Service, telling me “Amateur Radio License Expiration Alert – It’s time to Renew!, Renewal Notice Enclosed”   It has a warning block saying “failure to renew will void your operating authority and could result in the necessity for you to be re-examined and the loss of your station call sign”

Today is December 1, 2008, and my license (N5NTG) doesn’t expire until March 24, 2009.  I’m not within the 90 day time window prior to my expiration date, so I can’t renew this early.

This friendly reminder service was a courtesy service of The W5YI VEC, Inc., one of two major VEC (ham testing) services in the USA.  This is a legit company, don’t get me wrong.    The other major VEC group is of course, the ARRL.   There is no clear intent to deceive in this letter, it simply doesn’t mention that you can do it direct for free.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was contacted by phone yesterday by a local non-ham who was interested in talking further with the ham operator who drives a full sized white panel van which had ham license plates on it.  Of course, he didn’t remember the call sign (what’s a call sign?)  that would have been on the plates, but he remembered the “Radio Opr” wording.

Read the rest of this entry »

Alamo Area Radio Organization (AARO) will hold their next monthly meeting on Wednesday, November 12th, at a new location, Martha’s Mexican Restaurant, located at the corner of Huebner and Babcock Rd.  Meeting starts at 7pm, dining is optional, but at your own expense.  See their website at www.aa5ro.org for details.

San Antonio Radio Club (SARC)will hold their next meeting on Thursday, November 13th 2008 at K-COMM The HAM Store. Meetings start at 7:00pm.  This month’s meeting will have a special program featuring the recent DX trip to Belize by Tom O’Brien. Three radio operators from this area made the trip.  November is also the month to elect officers for the 2009 year.The address for K-COMM is 10815 Gulfdale and is located near the intersection of US HWY 281 and Isom Rd.  See their website at www.w5sc.org for details.

Radio Operators of South Texas (ROOST) hold their meetings on the 2nd Friday of the month, which would make that November 14th at 7:00pm.  They serve a meal, so the club suggests bringing a donation of $5 and a side dish to help out.  Visit their website at www.w5ros.org for more details..

Hill County REACT Team (REACT) has changed their monthly meeting date from the 3rd Monday to the 3rd Wednesday, same location, the Bulverde Volunteer Fire Dept on Cougar Bend Rd and FM1863.  This month, that would set their date as November 19th, starting at 7pm. They will be holding elections for various officer positions during this meeting.  All voting is done in person, not by mail-in ballot, must be present to vote. Visit website for details www.HillCountryREACT.org

For the November meeting times for other ham clubs in the area, visit the Area Clubs Web Page Here.

Fresh off the e-mail press from Jeff N5MNW…

The [Austin Amateur Radio Club’s] W5KA ’94 repeater has been exhibiting long/hanging squelch tails recently, most likely due to terrific VHF band openings and the decision to keep the Austin ’94 an old-fashioned carrier-access machine.  The antenna at ~1500′ ASL hears things we at ~700′ ASL can’t.  Near-threshold co-channel (Brownwood, HOU, SA, DFW) signals cause the hysteresis in the squelch circuit to keep the repeater keyed even though no audible signal is getting thru.

The [Austin] Technical Team is working on adding multiple, S/N voted 107.2Hz PL-tone-access remote receive site(s) that will help mitigate this effect.

Make sure you are encoding 107.2Hz to take full advantage of the planned upgrades!

Note: I received the original email on this topic, with headers intact showing that it truly did originate at an email address coming from the Ft. Worth PD. – Lee

Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 06:39:52 -0600

Hi Everyone,

One of my Officers in Ft. Worth found a radio in a pawn shop, the pawner has made some suspicious pawns and he is not a licensed radio operator.

The radio is a Yaesu FT-817 QRP Transceiver, the serial is 0N150301. All the 0’s in the serial are numbers not o as in ocean.  Could you ask them to see if one of these radios was stolen during October?

Read the rest of this entry »

ARRL WEST COAST CONVENTION – “With A Little Texas Touch”

In mid July, Bob Hejl, W2IK, was approached via email by Per Brashers, KI6JJS, requesting permission to reprint several of his Emcomm and antenna building web sites to assist in presenting a RACES forum at “PACIFICON 2008”, which is also known as the “Dayton Of The West”. It is the major ARRL West Coast convention held in mid October and offers dozens of lectures, a swap meet, exhibits, demonstrations and even an operational JOTA station. To learn more, see:

http://www.pacificon.org/index.html

Emails were exchanged and the request soon escalated into more than simple reprint permission. KI6JJS also requested assistance with creating his actual presentation script.

Read the rest of this entry »

As of November 1st, AOL is closing down all of their web page services so as a result, W2IK’s 45 ham-related web pages will no longer be available through AOL. To keep most of these pages intact, they are being moved to a new address: W2IK.com    Please visit them often as they are sorted, upgraded and posted. Currently posted are the older antenna building pages, Ecom and family preparedness pages. Totally new pages will be added as time allows.

Our MS staff is supporting us (the hams)  favorably, they promised that van rental is available local in San Antonio, Austin, or Dallas box truck or SAG van. Hams picking up their SAG or Box truck would return it back to original pickup location where they got it, not drive back to Houston to return it.

Also MS will provide paid for hotel rooms (Crowne Plaza) on Friday night, plus the usual free bunks at the church camp on Saturday night.  We’re still working to arrange designated refueling gas stations around like last yr.

It’s our 25th yr & with registration already closed at 13,000 riders,  I don’t anticipate problems with the event, other than normal.   Some break points have been moved to new locations on the route due to size problems.

Read the rest of this entry »