San Antonio Hams

Due to availability problems at Garner State Park, Bexar Operators Group – “Operation Deep Freeze” have changed it’s location. We will now be operating from Choke Canyon State Park, near the town of Three Rivers. Our operation will be from the Calliham Unit and we have reserved a screened shelter. All operators are welcome. Bring a sleeping bag and personal grub if you wish to join in on this mid-winter field operation.

Click here for a PDF map of park.

The Bexar Operators Group will be operating W5BOG during the “North American QSO Party” on January 17-18th 2009. This is a SSB only contest.

See original posting below for details and contact info.

2009 “Straight Key Night” begins at 7:00 p.m. EST December 31, 2008 and runs for 24 hours through 7:00 p.m. EST January 1, 2009 (0000 – 2400 UTC January 1, 2009).

SKN is more of an operating event and not a contest and you don’t need to operate during the entire event. To participate, simply send “CQ SKN” or listen for CQs that have SKN in them. The object of this friendly event is to enjoy some good old-fashioned QSO fun, using straight keys and not keyers or computers. The emphasis is on rag-chewing rather than fast contest-style exchanges.

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I don’t know about the rest of you out there, but I had a wonderful Christmas this year with my family all around me, and no emergency calls from the EOC asking for hams to staff the radios due so airplanes being stranded in town, or a fluke snow storm shutting down the highways and stranding travelers here, etc.

I’ve started working on the list of known events for 2009, with the help of Gary K5GST. My focus has been first on what events the REACT Team has been sponsoring, just because I have more info on them at hand, and then adding in all the other area club events, or charity events that I know are annual events.   I’ll be updating the Calendar events page over the next couple of weeks for as much of 2009 as I can reasonably predict.

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The Bexar Operators Group will be operating W5BOG during the “North American QSO Party” on January 17-18th 2009. This is a SSB only contest. We have tagged this as “Operation Deep-Freeze” as we will be operating from a field location, CHOKE CANYON STATE PARK (Three Rivers) – CALLIHAM UNIT (Screen Shelter Area) – NOTE LOCATION CHANGE!   This is a 12 hour event and, as in the past, we will continue to do field testing/experiments of different antenna systems to further our knowledge of short-term, deployable antennas and to enhance our camping abilities. 

If anyone is interested in joining, please email alonestaryank@aol.com with your interest. 

Hello all and Happy Holidays from Wade W5ERX

More questions have been raised as to the status of the donation for the 147.14 repeater.  I addressed this issue not long ago but it was brought to my attention a couple of days ago that all of you may not have received this information. For this reason I am sending this to as many individuals as I have e-mail addresses for.  If I have missed anyone please share this with them as soon as possible.

A few months ago Hill Country REACT received a check in the amount of $482.55 from Greg Lewis/ Unusual Suspects. This money  was earmarked as a donation for the 147.14 repeater.  This entire amount was placed into the REACT account to be held in trust for the repair on the repeater.  Other funds were raised from other hams up thru the Austin Summerfest held in August 2008, bringing the total up to about $750 or so in donations. Read the rest of this entry »

Eugene A. “Gene” Williams passed away on December 10, 2008 in San Antonio, Texas. He was born on June 20, 1952 in El Campo, Texas to Raymond Oscar Williams and Eva Lois Jacobs Williams. Gene was a member of the Gold Wing Riders Association-Chapter H and the ARRL Amateur Radio Association.

He was a Marshal for the Multiple Sclerosis: Valero Bike to the Beach.   He also did the American Diabetes Association: Tour de Cure and participated in the Chapter H Santa Ride for kids who could not afford to have Christmas gifts.

Gene retired from the U.S. Air Force as MSgt, serving from 1971-1993. He is survived by his parents; his loving wife, Raguell; daughters, Jennifer Lea Galyean, Tiffany Marie Charvet & husband, Robert, and Lisa Ann Johnston & husband, Luke; sister, Doris Ann Varnell; brother, William “Billy” Claude Williams & wife, Brenda; grandchildren, Anthony Lee Galyean, Dylan Frank Galyean, John Edward James Charvet; along with numerous nieces & nephews.

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I attended the 2008 Christmas party AARO with my lovely bride, Pat, and have the following report and photos to share.   

Lots of awards were given out in the form of certificates to former officers and members who had “done stuff” during the past year.  

I won’t try to keep up with that list here, but…

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(Hicksville, NY and Sacramento, CA, November 12, 2008) —

CQ Communications, Inc. has acquired WorldRadio magazine, CQ Publisher Dick Ross, K2MGA and WorldRadio Publisher Armond Noble, N6WR, announced jointly today.

CQ, based in Hicksville, New York, currently publishes CQ Amateur Radio, CQ VHF and Popular Communications magazines.   WorldRadio, based in Sacramento, California, has been published monthly since July, 1971, with a primary focus on the human side of ham radio.  CQ, a general-interest ham radio magazine best known for its support of DXing and contesting, has been in print since January, 1945.

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It was 35 degrees outside on a Sunday Morning, December 7th, but ten ham operators got up before the sun did, and drove over to the SE side of San Antonio for the annual San Antonio Road Runners 10 Miler Mission Run.   The event started and ended at the Mission County Park #2 on Padre Drive, near VFW Blvd.  The course ran down Mission Parkway, south of Military Drive, and then continued south of Loop 410 for a total of 5 miles, then returned.

The event had about 270 registrants this year, but 20 “no-shows” brought the number of runners down to about 250.  There were a  dozen or so “relay runners” who were supposed to run out to the 2.5 mile park and return, then let their partner run the same 2.5 out and back to finish.

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Local radio operators manned the radio station inside the National Weather Service office in New Braunfels, TX from 6pm Friday (Dec. 5th) thru 6pm Saturday (Dec. 6th) in two hour shifts.

I’ll update this report once I receive more details, but my wife (Pat Knight AD5BR) and I (Lee Besing N5NTG) were there Friday from 6pm – 10:30pm, along with J.C. Smith N5RXS, Lew Archer KD5MSW, Bob Hejl W2IK and visitation from Danny McCarty WA5KRP and Chuck Kenworthy WB5FWI.

J.C. N5RXS started out the operations by tagging onto the end of the Arkansas Razorback Net on HF, telling the Net Control what he was doing tonight and asking that stations interested in talking with this NWS stay on frequency afterward.  The calls stacked.   Then he moved over to the Texas Traffic Net and repeated that technique.  He quickly filled up almost 4 pages of log sheets, with 14 contacts per sheet.

Then comes Bob W2IK.  The reluctant Bob.  Pat AD5BR talked him into getting on the radio after he first resisted the idea, and he quickly filled up about 3 sheets of contacts in about 45 minutes.  This guy knows how to work a contest, even when it wasn’t really a “contest per se”.   He staked out a heavily used area on the HF band, started talking, and started logging contact after contact.

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