I’m currently compiling a list of clubs or individual stations who are making plans for Field Day 2013.  If you want me to share your location and hours of operation (some clubs don’t run full 24 hours, and/or shut down during the night and resume in the morning), please send an email to info@sanantoniohams.org with “Field Day 2013″ in the subject line to get my attention. 

Please include any details you want shared, such as a talk-in frequency especially if you are on private property or a hard to find location.  Let us know if there are any admission fees (such as operating from a public or private park, etc.).  If you require RSVP, please provide the official contact info for that purpose.  If you are limiting the hours of operation, such as taking a recess during the middle of the night and resuming the next morning, let me know that also.  I know you don’t just want folks to show up for meal time, especially if they aren’t a member of your club.

Other than sifting thru the thousands of emails on my computer, I also visited the ARRL official site locator page to see what I could see.  I was very disappointed, but then reminded myself that we’re still about a month away, so some clubs might not have registered their location yet.  As of the date of this article, there were only 646 registered FD sites in the USA.  Wow!

And then I looked for San Antonio / Central Texas area on the map, and said “double wow!”  I know of several clubs not shown on this map, as of today, who plan on conducting a FD event.  Click on the screen shot to the right for details.  The little red map parkers are those FD locations registered as of 05-19-2013 with ARRL.  The little yellow arrows are the locations that I’m aware of, where clubs are planning their event.

CLUBS known to be participating in Field Day in Central Texas include…

• AARO – San Antonio – Raymond Russell Park (Off IH-10 & Camp Bullis Rd area of town). Operating on Saturday only. www.aa5ro.org
• SARC – Shavano Park City Hall – NW Military (between DeZavala Rd and Loop 1604). Operating 24 hours. www.w5sc.org
• ROOST – SE Bexar County – Hwy 181 & Loop 1604 on Park St, from their clubhouse. Operating 24 hours?  www.w5ros.org
• GVARC – New Braunfels, operating from a member’s house up on River Road, 24 hours operation. RSVP, talk-in on 147.000, no unscheduled late night visitors, property is gated.
• KARS – Boerne, operating from a member’s ranch, off Hwy 46 east of Boerne, 24 hours operation.
• I suspect Medina County ARC and Atascosa County ARC are holding events.
• I know the Hays / Caldwell Hams up near San Marcos are holding a FD event.
• I know the Hill Country ARC in Kerrville is holding a FD event.
• I know the Chaparral ARC in Seguin is holding an event from the county’s Office of Emergency Management Ham Station.
• I know that Wilson County ARC is holding one in Poth, TX.
• I know that the Austin ARC up north a few miles is also holding their FD event.
• I know that there are 2 FD events being held in Corpus Christi.

Wheatley Heights Sports Complex is a brand new facility on the east side of San Antonio, near Houston & IH-10. This facility is on the opposite side of IH-10 from the American Red Cross HQ (shown in picture with a red cross.)

The aftermath of the 1998 flood that caused the evacuation of the American Red Cross, was the prompt to get a $7.5million grant to build this complex, using funds from private and public sources, including tax money from the Hotel & Rental Car tax fund.  This area was devastated by the flood and all of the houses were destroyed.  The city purchased the property from the owners and relocated them out of the flood plain. There are signs near the parking lots warning about this area will be subject to flooding.

You can click on the photo on the right for a full size image of the proposed route layout.  Or click on  the photo on the left that I “borrowed” from the Wheatley Heights Sports Complex website  and added some directional arrows and markers over the actual facility.

This location is so new, less than a year or two old, that even Google Earth doesn’t have an updated areal photo showing the existence of this sports complex.

We only need a handful of hams since the route is out & back. If you want to volunteer, please contact Lee N5NTG at info@sanantoniohams.org or call 210-771-7075 (voice/text).

Even though I always somehow seem to end up “in charge” of these types of events, I could NOT do this without all the help I get from other Ham Radio operators who “appear out of the woodwork” when I most need them.

Some of you volunteered, changed your personal plans, and showed up to help, even though you were hurting, such as Earlene Harris K5DEH who had just broken a rib a couple days before the event.  Some of you practically “demanded” that I allow you to participate! 

GVAR’s 147.000 repeater cooperated with us all day, with no major glitches noticed.  GVARC had a couple of hams standing by monitoring the repeater, and the event, to be sure it stayed up and running.  We never needed to switch over to either backup repeater frequency.

The weather cooperated with us and we didn’t have many areas of the route with water on them. I know of at least one road that was reported as “wet, but just puddle, not running across the road.”  I promised Paul Yura & his crew that I’d try to get some even t-shirts if they “made the bad weather go away,” so I guess I need to keep that promise. J

I’m currently accepting “after action debriefing reports” from any hams who worked the event.  Please email those reports to me at tdc@sanantoniohams.org when you get the time.  There should be a volunteer party in a few months. If that happens, I’ll put the word out and collect your RSVP’s at that time.

Bryce and Ann Weathersby agreed amicably to “split up for the day”, and Bryce KE5KFD drove SAG #5 with his son, Jake, while Ann KE5TEZ and her daughter, Bryanne, worked Rest Stop #1 and then relocated over to Rest Stop #8 to help Dave Espinoza W5QS who was there from the start.

George Griesenbach W5GRG came over from Comfort, TX, and worked Rest Stop #2 for us. This is where the 50 split off from the 70/100 mile routes.

Lew Archer WV0YVY worked as Rest Stop #3 Ham up in Sattler, and then jumped in his car and followed the last of the 70 mile riders down the course as “temporary turtle” until they reached the next to the last rest stop (#7) on the 70 mile route.

Bart Pearl N5BLP did everything but demand I give him an assignment!  LOL He ended up as the Rest Stop #7 Ham, and entertained us with his Yaesu radio generating that WIRES ID CW all day long.   Rest Stop 7 saw everybody except the 15 or the 100 mile riders.

Ray Mueller AE5HN, who always seems to do things way above what the minimum requirement was, was over at Rest Stop #4, where the 70 & 100 split off at the south end of River Road.  Instead of sitting in the shade and just working the radio, he was standing (not sitting) on the side of the road, out in the sun with his hat on, verbally directing riders into the Rest Stop that was around the side of the River Road Ice House.

Jeremy Davenport KE5ELI used the event as an excuse to “get away” from his newborn baby, and worked Rest Stop #5 for the afternoon, after learning it was within a mile of his house.  Rest stop #5 was on the 100 mile route only.  I’m glad we were able to provide him with a feasible excuse to “take a break” for a few hours.

Lothar and Earlene Harris (K5LEH / K5DEH) volunteered to work Rest Stop #6 on the 100 mile route, even though Earlene had just recovered from some serious medical treatments and had broken a rib just days before the event.  Lothar sent me a photo of Earlene standing in the sun holding bicycles for the riders while they refilled their water bottles and grabbed a snack or two.

David Espinoza W5QS served double duty at Rest Stop #8, as the Rest Stop Ham and helping medical with his EMT training.  David is consistently the early bird ham at all of our events, first to arrive, and last to leave his position, ensuring that the last rider / runner has passed thru before he leaves.

Scott Reeve KT5SR came all the way from Houston to help out. He served as “Turtle” on the 100 mile route, and picked up signs along the way.  Despite not being familiar with the route, Scott drove the entire 100 mile route and ended up with his pickup truck bed full of TdC signage.  Amazingly enough, he was still smiling at the end of the day!

Curtis Rabenalt N5QPN was our SAFETY Officer out on the course. Unfortunately, due to some unknown mix-up, Curtis ended up without any marked patrol cars or uniformed officers to assist him with any hot-spots, such as where the 100 mile route crossed under IH-35 in New Braunfels, of when the report came in about the dogs chasing the riders on the eastern portion of the 100 mile route.  Curtis also assisted Susan Storrie who was the TdC Route Sign Chair in putting up signs on the day before the event.

Ruth Lewis KE5MHJ and Greg Lewis N5XO brought out their wonderful Hamster comm van, and proceeded to make the Sound System contractor very angry, even before they got the van set up.  Seems the contractor hadn’t been at any of the planning meetings or the walk-thru on the Thursday before the event, so he just set up his speakers all over the place and strung wires across the paved drive areas (about 8’ or less off the ground) without any reflectors, hanging signs or other safety measures.  So when Greg arrived before dark, driving that slightly taller than normal vehicle (think of a Red Cross ERV van or large Ambulance) and followed the cones into the overhang area so he could turnaround and park where the event committee had decided to put the communications van, he accidently ripped down the cables strung across in the dark.  Oops!  But all ended well, with the contractor taking down some of the speakers that were setup too near the communications area, and my turning down (way, way down, like “off”) the 2nd speaker that was still too close to our van.

Greg Lewis N5XO commented that he wasn’t much help with Net Control due to some hearing problems, so the primary Net Control operator was usually his wife, Ruth Lewis KE5MHJ, with relief provided by Jeff Schmidt N5MYW as needed.  With all the ambient noise inside, even with the doors shut, he had problems separating out the voices on the different radios. But he says his new hearing aids should arrive soon, so perhaps that won’t be as much of a problem in the future.  Having headsets available for use on the VHF/UHF radios inside the Hamster would help greatly as well.  Only the HF radios in the Hamster had readily available jacks for headsets. Ruth promised to get that fixed for next time.

Our Dynamic Duo from Austin, the Austin APRS Crew, Jeff Schmidt N5MNW and Paul Fenrich KA5FZU, arrived around 6:15am with their equipment, but decided to be “anti-social” and relocated down the sidewalk from the prime real estate I had staked out for them already.  Jeff said something about that loud music interfering with their ability to hear themselves think, much less operate on the radios.    We had extremely good APRS coverage on the course, and minimal need to reset the trackers in the SAG vans.  Being able to glance at the computer screen and see where the various units were located, was extremely helpful in getting the nearest van to a rider requesting pickup.  They also came down Friday afternoon, taking off work early to be here on time, and installed the trackers in each of the 6 SAG vans before the drivers departed with them.

It’s amazing how much “behind the scenes” work is needed for an event like these require.  Sort of like watching that duck out on the pond, moving so gracefully, but not seeing those feet paddling like crazy to keep up….

The topic of “Where are our SAG Vans?” was a bouncing ball for at least a week before the event.  First we were to pick them up over off IH-10 at the Colonnades Enterprise location near the National MS Office, then it was moved over to the 24 hour Enterprise Airport location on the south side of Loop 410 @ Airport Blvd.  Oops, then it was moved over the older Enterprise location on Hwy 281 & Jones-Maltsberger, behind the Embassy Suites.  After I visited there on Wednesday (May 8^th) before the event to confirm everything was set up, I received a phone call early on Friday morning (May 10^th) from the first location, saying they had our 6 vans ready for pickup. Oops!  I called Brady (branch mgr at the Hwy 281 location) to verify what was up.  Seems an intern (at Enterprise) hadn’t properly canceled the original reservation (at the higher price, and IH-10 location), nor a temporary reservation that somehow ended up made in my personal name.  So at one point, we had 18 vans ready to roll on Friday.  But Brady was able to get it all cleared up, and we just picked up the 6 vans on time at the Hwy 281 location.  The vans were all returned back before 8pm on Saturday, May 11^th.

Our Fantastic SAG Team consisted of:

1. Royce Taylor KA5OHJ driving SAG #1. Royce had the most prior experience as a SAG driver than any of the other SAG drivers, or even myself.
2. Joe Bruno W5AUQ and his grandson (didn’t get his name) drove SAG #2.  Joe helped shuffle supplies from one rest stop to another, even when they changed their minds and wanted the supplies back at the original rest stop.
3. Kevin Wilson KF5JJQ drove SAG #3 with his “googolly eyes” on the rear windows, and ended up as the turtle for the 50 mile route. Kevin also came out on for that Thursday night (May 8^th) walk-thru planning meeting at the Retama to help us figure out the best place to situate communications, relatively near the medical, EMS ambulance, but away from the sound system (for all the good that did us on the morning of the event.)  You  will be seeing more of Kevin at future events, as he’s agreed to be my new sidekick and help with the planning of future events as well.  That help is well appreciated, and he showed good judgment when we needed to rearrange the TdC Staff’s ideas of where we ought to be hidden away on the day of the event.
4. Jeffery Dillon and Mary Ann Horn N5MYN were in SAG #4, always in the right spot when I needed them to be there.
5. Bryce Weathersby KE5KFD and his son, Jake, were in SAG #5 as previously mentioned. Bryce was always willing to go that extra mile when help was needed.
6. Jim Haley K0GM and his wife, Georgia, were the SAG #6 driver team on the 50 mile route. They managed to find the only rider who was bleeding after he “took a tumble” when his father’s bicycle moved in front of him. Oops.  Jim brought them both back to the finish where the two EMT’s in the ambulance almost fought over the privilege of treating a patient.  The EMT’s were so bored all day, which is a good thing.

We had 23 Motorcycle Marshals, coordinated by Mike Perez W5ZAP.  They “earned their t-shirt” on this event, as they always do.  Without those extra eyes and ears (not counting the extra eyes on the back of SAG #3), we’d be hard pressed to be as efficient as we were.

UPDATE – 05/15/2013 – Here is an updated list of the Motorcycle Marshals who rode that day:

1. Michael Perez W5ZAP
2. Ray McLeaird N5RAM
3. John Perry KE5PRE
4. Claude Howard KD5YZX
5. Daryl Mai W5MAI
6. Shawn McAlpine KF5AVE
7. Paul Guido N5IUT
8. Bob Kelly KF5OSX
9. Daniel Garcia
10. Jean Williamson
11. Russell Minor
12. Jaime Panciera
13. Manual Tarin
14. Lance Tracy
15. Paul Tarter KE5TDO
16. Steve Evans KF5SCK
17. Andre Ebaben
18. Earl Gabbard
19. John Guerra
20. Carlos Ortiz
21. Gary Bentson KF5JYH
22. Jorge Patino KC5RY
23. Jacque Robertson

I’ve already told the TDC staff, that next year, I want 10 SAG Vans to cover the route.  We had too many holes in our coverage areas, and the 15/30 mile routes were experiencing delays of 30-45 minutes, or more, before a rider was actually picked up by the Safelite Auto Glass SAG cars.  Our vans were spread way too thin on the multiple routes.

It wasn’t the number of riders vs. number of SAG vans, it was the mileage vs. the number of SAG vans that hurt us this year. There weren’t many short cuts to bounce from one route to the other, although we sure tried to do that.  I appreciated the patience of the SAG drivers when we changed plans in mid stream and redirected them to another part of the course to get a different rider.  I think our ridership levels were down, but the mileage per van was way up.

I want to thank my son, David Besing KD5MTJ, who covered a work assignment for me on Friday, so that I could run around picking up t-shirts from the ADA offices, picking up extra radios and supplies from my storage unit, buying 6 cases of bottled water for the SAG Vans, and get them all delivered to the Enterprise location.  Then he stayed with me the rest of the day, helping apply the vinyl numbers to each van and distribute the water and other signs, while the APRS crew installed the trackers.  Then he went with me to meet up with the Motorcycle Marshals who were having a pre-event dinner at Grady’s BBQ on San Pedro.  We showed them the large signs (thanks to Frank Kreusel at Art-Trig Corp in Leon Valley) and talked about the route, weather contingency plans, and distributed t-shirts to those present.

Speaking of T-Shirts…  If anyone didn’t get their event t-shirt, please contact me direct via email.  I’ve got extras, but only in the following sizes:

• Large (Youth),
• Large (Adult),
• XL and
• 2XL.
• No 3XL shirt sizes are remaining. (I do have some 2011 3XL shirts from another ride, if you are interested.)

I’ve already given Mike Perez W5ZAP some of the extras for those Motorcycle Marshals who may not have received their shirt yet.  Perhaps I can meet up with anyone who still needs a shirt to give your shirt to you, or see you at an upcoming club meeting or event sometime soon.

I truly appreciate all of your help.  If I missed anyone above, I’m sorry. I tried to name names and recognize those who did extra work for me, but I’m still tired from the event and it’s taken me this long just to start playing catch up.  I did finally unload my own van on Sunday over at my storage unit, so that part got done.  My “Stop Diabetes” baseball cap and the “Communications” sign got left in the Hamster, so I guess I’ll need to keep my promise to attend at least part of the upcoming Unusual Suspects event on May 17-18^th (see below for info).

Upcoming events…. While I’ve got your ear tuned to working events…

• FYI – Hill Country REACT’s next meeting is on Wednesday, May 22^nd, at 7pm, in Bulverde. See www.HillCountryREACT.org for location details. Visitors are always welcome, and new members are especially welcomed. Our group is almost 100% licensed hams, but we have a few XYL’s who haven’t gotten their ticket yet.  Feel free to attend.  We do meet at a Mexican Restaurant (Picadillo’s) but they aren’t open for serving during our meeting.
• May17-18-19^th – The Unusual Suspects Ham Club (un-Club) will be holding their annual pre-field day event that weekend on some ranch property out past Bandera, near Tarpley, Texas.  Setup on Friday, operate on Saturday, and shut down on Sunday.  This is a Camp-Out type event, so bring your tent, trailer or RV with you if you plan to be there the whole weekend.  Contact Greg Lewis to get the contact person’s name (Wesley). I can’t remember his contact info right the minute as I’m typing this.
• May 26^th – American Hero 25k Relay Run. This is a Sunday morning event, to be held over on the east side, near Houston & IH-10 at the Wheatley Sports Complex.  The route is 5k (out & back total) and they run it 5 times in relay. Not real exciting.  They start on the track inside the stadium, run out across the parking lot and over to the Salado Creek path in the greenbelt area.  I will be over there on this Thursday for their Walk-Around planning session, and will attempt to figure out what repeater works best. We might be able to run this simplex since the furthest distance is only  2.5k (about 1.5 miles) from the start.  I’m not sure if we can get our vehicles down near the end or middle of the route, but I’ll find out.  We might need to borrow the REACT Team’s golf cart and then drop off operators with their folding chairs at the various locations. We’ll also assign a shadow to ride / run / stick with the Race Director and with Medical.  We won’t need a huge amount of operators for this event, perhaps 8-10 max, but I’m also planning on having a “guest” from Germany show up to help us.  Felix Mann DL5JF is arriving in San Antonio on Saturday, May 25^th.  I’ve invited him to participate in the American Hero 25k Relay Run the next day.  He said yes, so we’ll see how reality affects prior planning. Please let me know if you are interested in volunteering for this.

PS: All of the hams who work this event on the 26^th, will be invited to attend a free dinner on the evening of August 5^th at Spaghetti Warehouse downtown.  This will be an RSVP event, with RSVP’s thru myself.

• On June 8^th, same day as the Plano HamCom event, the Texas Water Safari will start their paddles at 8am in San Marcos and canoe down the river until they reach the Gulf Coast at Sea Drift, Texas.  260 miles of water and mosquitoes with around 150 canoe teams vying for prizes and titles.  The SARO Ham Club (Eric Olsen WA5ZJQ) is the point of contact, and I’ll be at the Staples Dam checkpoint (at approximately 13 miles) with Kevin Wilson. Other volunteers are welcomed to join us.  Staples Dam is NE of New Braunfels, SW of San Marcos, near Martindale.

Staples Dam will be open from 9am until around 4pm on that Saturday. Official cut-off time is 3pm.  We’ll be running voice on linked 2 meter and 440 repeaters, plus using Packet on a series of linked Digipeaters downstream.  There are many checkpoints as the route goes down stream, with longer and longer operation hours. Some spots near Victoria will be there 2-3 days (24/hrs a day) as the canoe teams get stretched out along the river.  The Hams from San Antonio usually work the checkpoints that are cleared by late Sunday, but are always welcomed to volunteer to go down stream and relieve some very tired hams at other checkpoints.

• June 22-23 is Field Day Weekend!  Multiple Ham Clubs are doing their thing this weekend. I’ll post more info soon on http://SanAntonioHams.org/blog as I get the time.
• July 4^th Canyon Lake Parade – Hams are needed to coordinate the staging area for the 4^th of July Parade up in Startzville (FM2673 on south side of Canyon Lake).  Hill Country REACT Team will be coordinating this event, and hams from other clubs are always welcomed. This is a fairly decent small town parade with lots of entries, not to be compared to the commercialized parades in San Antonio. These parades are still fun to do and to watch.   Contact Louis Upton K5STX or myself to volunteer.  This is an HT only event, as we’ll be mostly on foot during the staging, but wash your car, because we all get to jump in line at the end of the parade and wave at the spectators!  But the key thing is, we get to beat the traffic out of town before the sheriff lets the roads open back up!
• July 28^th is another Boerne Triathlon, the Small/Tiny Texan Triathlon. (See this link for details. http://www.brittonbikes.com/hcsa-events/small-texan-tri/small-tx-mainpage.htm)  This event uses the KARS repeaters and is mostly a mobile radio only type event, but some assignments will be close enough for HT use.  I need help with the Net Control station at the Boerne City Lake, and we put hams out on the bicycle and running portion of the route. Sorry, no ham equipped kayaks or floats.  We need a turtle vehicle (fuel is reimbursed) and perhaps a lead vehicle on the bicycle route, motorcycle marshals would be nice, rest stop hams, critical intersection hams, etc.  The event is sponsored by the Hill Country Sports Association and Britton Bikes.  Some assignments will last all day, others are early bird assignments (bicycle route), others are sleepy person assignments (sleep in & arrive late morning, then stay late for the run portion to complete.)
• And to finish off the summer events, make your plans now to go up to Austin for the Austin Summerfest on the first weekend of August, the 2^nd and 3^rd (Friday / Saturday).

Please contact me directly at info@sanantoniohams.org  if you want to volunteer for any of these events, or just want more information about any of them.

Please forward any photos taken during the Tour de Cure event, if you have some. I’d appreciate it!

Thanks again for all the help!  I’ve received multiple compliments from riders and TdC committee members about the awesome job of communications and coordination that we did.

Lee Besing, N5NTG
Phone (210)771-7075 (cell) voice or text

Field Day Is Just Around The Corner – Plan Now !

Hill Country REACT will be operating a special events station at the 2013 AREA 20 Special Olympics Spring Games. The guest operator will be W2IK, who will concentrate on 40 meters, around 7.270 MHZ from about 9AM until he poops out in the afternoon. Feel free to work this station, send a QSL card and a SASE to the QRZ address of  K5HCR, since this is the callsign he will be using.

Guest ops are welcome to join in at the operation:  Location is at the Frank Mata Stadium, 1922 S. General McMullen in the “athlete village’. If you hear us, work us and please post on the cluster!  Back in 2006, we made over 130 contacts in 4 hours. Help us break that record.

Jean and Ed Larose KS5V

I received a text from Jean. Ed passed away this morning sometime around 3:00 a.m. She said “his pain is gone”.

Ed had been recently diagnosed at the VA Hospital with a very rare form of Stage 4 Cancer in his Bile Ducts (Gallbladder). Initially the doctors had given an estimate of 1-2 years, dropped this month to perhaps 6 months, all with proper medical treatment to extend to that date. Ed went on record to decline such treatment, saying he didn’t want to undertake expensive treatment just to prolong the pain another month of two.

Please keep the Larose family in your prayers as they say goodbye to a Husband, Father and Grandfather. Ed didn’t want a funeral service. I will keep you posted on how you may want to pay your respects.

Andrew Watson, K5NNN

FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT TELL THIS WAS AN APRIL FOOLS HOAX, I”M PUTTING THIS SPOILER UP FRONT!  Duh!

Buried in the middle of the 1200-page Health Care Reform package is something that should be disturbing to all US amateur radio operators. Embedded in the funding guidelines section 415, paragraph 27, line 45, are details on one of the mechanisms that the government intends to employ to help pay for the staggering costs of the new plan.

To put it simply, the new health care guidelines support the notion of creative funding from untapped resources, and from other government agencies, like the FCC.

This puts the burden on funding on other agencies, and therefore the health care reform pundits can claim that “they” didn’t introduce any new taxes to pay for everything.

Lurking in the depths of the new health carecare package is a time bomb waiting to affect all US Amateur Radio Operators; The new Talk And Pay (TAP) Tax.

What does the TAP Tax do? Well, just as it implies, it adds a tax on to each amateur license, based on usage of the bands.

The FCC knew it was going to be troublesome to enforce this kind of regulation, so they came up with a clever scheme – taxation by license class. All Technician, General, and Extra Class Licensees will be taxed at a different rate. Any holdover licenses from different classes will be taxed at the next higher rate, so novice license holders will be taxed as technicians, advanced holders as extra class licensees and so on.

The logic is that higher class licenses can use more of the frequencies; therefore they pay a larger percentage. There are even paragraphs that define taxing stations that haven’t operated, (although you have to prove that by filing a waiver), stations where the license holder has become a silent key (a different waiver), and repeater or space stations (when the license is held by a non-profit group, you can apply for a waiver as well).

The legislators have even thought of the mechanism to capture revenue from youngsters, in their special Tax On Eventual Earnings (TOE) tax. So, a youngster who is not working will pay into a TOE TAP TAX account, in the form of a debit owed to the government.

Even retirees do not escape this tax, as there is a provision for the SNAP TAP TAX (Sure Not Accounting for Productivity).

There does seem to be a provision for testing down to a previous license class, so you can get a tax break by forfeiting your current license class, (after taking a new 50 question written exam, and paying a hefty 45 dollar examination fee). You’ll be then required to sign BCKTP in CW or “slash Back Tap” in voice.

This looks to be pretty well thought out. I stopped reading after seeing the FCC amateur radio entry. It appears that Cell phones and wireless data networks will be next. There are 20 other government agencies listed in the document.

Where will this insanity end? All of this is scheduled to go into effect on April 1, 2013 because there apparently wasn’t enough time to implement it before then.

If this doesn’t negatively impact the growth of amateur radio, I don’t know what will! I think it will also promote the notion of going really underground, and not using your callsign at all, actually a practice that I’ve already heard lots of people adopt, especially on VHF.

I called my congressman after reading all of this, and he said that there are already proposals being filed to allow credit for amateur radio operators involved in public service, and he called it the Support for Individuals Desiring to Engage in Services Training, Education, and Planning (SIDESTEP). That makes me feel a little better.

I think it just might be time to get rid of my gear, before all this TOE TAP, SNAP TAP, BACK TAP, and SIDESTEP stuff goes into affect.

Once again, the government is here to help you.

Hello Everyone,

The Texas Severe Weather Conference, SkyWarn Training Session is coming up this Saturday at the University of the Incarnate Word.
Registration is required and is FREE. Sign up, if you haven’t
already done so, at www.texasstorms.org.

See you this Saturday.

Alex Garcia

The Southwest Lynx Repeater System will be down for a couple of weeks for maintenance.

I don’t have any other details.

Thanks & 73s -

Mark, KE5GL
Kendall Amateur Radio Society

Guadalupe Valley Amateur Radio Club (GVARC) is now offering the opportunity to test for your FCC Amateur Radio License through the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Volunteer Examiner (VE) program.

When: April 6, 2013, Testing starts at 10:00 am.

Location: New Braunfels Fire Department Training Center Emergency Operations Center (1311 Industrial Dr. Suite A New Braunfels, TX 78130)

Exam Fee: $15.00 – Payable by cash or personal check

Requirements: Photo ID or 2 alternate forms of identification, plus your Social Security Number (SSN) or Federal Registration Number (FRN – Free registration on FCC.GOV website).   Note: Testing for License class upgrade also requires applicant’s ORIGINAL License or Certificate of Successful Completion and an additional photocopy of such documentation.

Morse code is not required for any Amateur Radio License

Contact: Gary S. Tangrady K5GST – Volunteer Examiner (VE) via email – K5GST01@gmail.com
or call one of the VE’s at phone – (210) 619-6217

GVARC is now sponsoring an ARRL affiliated VE Team and will conduct test sessions on a quarterly or more frequent basis as the demand for such requires.