San Antonio Hams

W2IK- NNN0KSI – NNN0GBY2, from San Antonio, Texas, will be donating 150 copies of his amateur radio emergency communications training course (on CD) so they may be given out at EmComm East, held in Rochester, New York in early October 2009.

In the past, he has given out hundreds of copies of this training guide, for free, to dozens of clubs, including REACT and ARES groups throughout the country and Canada, Pacificon 2008 (held in California last year), as well as two special emergency antennas of his design and plans, and authoring a special “white paper” for Communications Academy 2007 as per their request when health problems prevented him from giving a lecture.

He will also be donating one of his VHF emergency antenna kits to this event as a free raffle.

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Seasons change and as they do, so do our emergency communications priorities. With the advent of Summer, in this case a bit earlier, June 1st marks the beginning of “Hurricane Season”. It’s been predicted to be a very active period.

Many newly licensed hams have joined the amateur radio ranks just in time to become useful communicators should an emergency caused by severe weather arise. There is always a need for trained emergency communications personnel, but this is especially true in the areas which are more likely to be impacted by a hurricane, those regions being the Atlantic and Gulf Coast areas. However, it takes more than just a license and a hand-held radio to make you a useful part of emergency communications. It also takes preparation, training and practice.

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The picture to the right was taken in March of this year when former President George W. Bush met up with Bob Hejl, W2IK, while the former President was touring the “Center For The Intrepid” where W2IK works.

The Center For The Intrepid is part of the BAMC military hospital complex in San Antonio where “Wounded Warriors” have physical therapy and are outfitted with the latest in prosthetic limbs.  

W2IK explained to Bush that the last time he had seen him was when he was doing emergency communications work at “Ground Zero” during the World Trade Center Disaster in 2001. After hearing that, Bush slapped him on the back and said : “God Bless you for being there. It’s an honor to shake your hand.”

After some small talk, such as W2IK explaining how he moved down to Texas in 2002, married a “good Texas woman” (Krissy, KD5YTN)  and how he knew it was a Texas residency requirement to root for a Texas football team, the former President finished his building tour.

 The photo below was taken today while I was testing the output of my solar panels that I’ll be using for the W5BOG (Bexar Operators Group) Field Day up at Lost Maples State Park. We will be setting up in the afternoon on Friday, June 26th so as to also operate during a Navy-Marine Corps MARS traffic net that evening. Field Day starts on Saturday, June 27th and runs through noon Sunday, June 28th. It is a 24 hour event, but we’ll be doing other ham-related things, including experiments, while we are there.

Since the duty cycle of SSB is much less than FM (25% vs 100%),  they’ll be able to easily keep my six banks of marine deep cycle batteries charged.

 Combine this system and my 200 watt wind turbine unit (pix shows three blades before I added three more to make it much more efficient) will mean plenty of power for at least two SSB stations to operate. This setup will also be used for my jump team programs. I may even skip bringing any of my gas generators with me to my jump team boot camps. Anyone who wishes to join us at Lost Maples is free to do so. Bring a sleeping bag (we provide the tent) and whatever personal items you wish. (check out the park  and how to get there by clicking on the red “Lost Maples State Park” title above)  All power, including the LED lighting system, will be furnished using either battery charged solar energy or wind energy. Cooking will be accomplished using propane stoves. This will be a non-polluting  “GREEN” power operation. Antennas won’t be commerically made, but will be built “on the spot” as if deploying under emergency conditions. Come and learn how to operate during a real emergency situation where all you have is what’s brought to the site. Learn about site survey and set up from scratch, setting up and using solar and wind turbine power, duty cycles of equipment, propagation (how it works for or against you) and basic contesting skills from someone who has earned several operating awards and deployed emergency stations many times using survival skills acquired over the past 35 years. Since we are out in the field, I will even give mini-lessons on subjects such as how to filter “local water” using a 4- step filter system, of my own design, which ecom workers may need if deployed to a rustic area and run out of bottled water.   Learn alot and have a lot of fun! If you plan on coming, email me at:   alonestaryank@aol.com    

Bob  W2IK – W5BOG – NNN0KSI – NNN0BGY2  MARS Ecom

by Shane O’Neal NS5D

Field Day 2009 is nearly upon us, and preparations are underway to make this the largest, most successful Field Day event in San Antonio’s history. This is thanks to the participation of AARO, SARC, ROOST, SARO, Hill Country REACT, QCWA and many other organizations and individuals, operating jointly under the banner of Bexar County ARES.

Field Day 2009 is expected to draw record numbers of operators and will feature many different bands and modes of operation, including PHONE, CW, SSB, PSK-31, FM and ATV as a Class “A” station. The total number of transmitters to be operated has yet to be determined, but will number at least six.

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This is NOT a simple, typical “field day”operation. This IS a serious over-night “real day – real deal” learning session.

A much shortened version of my full 3 day Jump Team Boot Camp will be offered ONLY IF there are enough interested hams in this area.

Note: My full 3-day boot-camp is still being held in late October but it’s been requested that I also hold a simpler one. We will go through the same basic steps needed to set up and run a complete emergency communications complex at a location where nothing would be standing.

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There seems little to concern us, if you ignore the more hysterical media, but the site below may be helpful to your Team. I expect if you click on your ‘refresh’ icon it will update the map to show you the latest information from the CDC.

If you refer to it as H1N1 flu (its correct name that sounds a little like a radio call sign), rather than ‘swine flu’, you will make life a lot easier for many farmers. Keep in mind too that 30,000 Americans die annually from other strains of flu. I don’t have Canadian stats. To this point there has been only 1 U.S. death from H1N1 and 0 in Canada. Washing your hands lots is the best prevention. Head for your doctor if you get any symptoms of flu to be on the safe side.

http://snipurl.com/gzu23

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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The Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard are co-sponsoring the annual Military/Amateur Radio Crossband Communications Test in celebration of the 59th anniversary of Armed Forces Day.

The AFD Military/Amateur Crossband Communications Test will be conducted on May 9 – 10, 2009. The annual celebration features traditional military to amateur crossband communications SSB voice tests and copying the Secretary of Defense message via digital modes.

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    Bob Hejl – W2IK   World Trade Center Disaster First Responder

PTSD can happen at any time after an event. As in my case, even years after. There is usually a “trigger” (a word, smell, image, another experience, etc) which can set it off, and in my case it was just a thought that popped into my head. 

Allow me to explain.

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