San Antonio Hams

Here’s a photo taken of me on Sunday, July 12th, about 3 hours before my van held an impromptu BBQ Cook-off in the middle of the road.

Little did I know what was about to happen, but I sure looked satisfied at the time of this photo, at least with the progress I was making with my emergency go-kit in a rolling tool box.

By the way, the story posted earlier about W21IK and his antenna test at Bullis County Park?   This photo was taken by W2IK during that event, because he said it wasn’t fair that I got to take all the photos and hide behind the camera. 🙂

I started out with a plain heavy duty Stanley brand toolbox w/ wheels available from Wal-mart for about $20. 

This toolbox was selected because the wheels were mounted on a single piece steel rod shaft that ran the full width, from wheel to wheel.  In other words, the wheels weren’t simply snapped onto the sides like some of the other cheaper models I had looked at elsewhere.  Also, I had looked at some two-piece toolboxes that stacked, but they ran the risk of having the two pieces come apart at the wrong time while loading or unloading from your vehicle, or rolling to where ever you needed the kit to be.  I just liked the idea of a one-piece double stacked toolbox with strong wheels that were unlikely to come off at the wrong time.

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I wish to thank all of those readers who have expressed their concerns over the loss of my van last Sunday to the engine fire. 

The old van now has a new home in a junkyard somewhere in Texas, and I now have a new(er) van sitting in my driveway with seriously less mileage and years than the old van had on it.  

The new van is a late model Chrysler Town & Country mini-van with a factory installed alarm, dark limo tinted windows, sliding doors on both sides, and more option packages than I’m normally used to having.  At first, I was concerned about the black exterior causing the van to be too hot, but actually, it hasn’t been any hotter than my old van got on a summer day. Guess that’s why I always put that window shade in the front  windshield when not driving.  Those shades really work!

I sent out tweets and emails to various groups and individuals asking for input / suggestions on the best way to install the antenna in this type of vehicle. 

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This morning I met Bob W2IK up on the north side of San Antonio at a county park named Bullis Park. This is near Blanco Rd & Borgfield Road, on the back side of Camp Bullis (way outside Loop 1604). The purpose of this meet was to test some of Bob’s new antenna deployment ideas in preparation for the CQ VHF Contest next weekend. He had just received a new aluminum flag pole that would extend from 6′ to 25′ tall in 5 sections.

Bob rigged a mount in the bed of his truck, using an old heavy-duty umbrella stand (emphasis on the “heavy” part of that description) that he had rescued a couple of years ago at a yard sale or side of the road (I forget which), strapped the mounting pipe to that stand, inserted the flag pole, attached the yagi 2 meter beam antenna and coax, then raised it up to the full height. The pole itself only weighs about 10 pounds. He bought it on eBay for about $80 including shipping.

He powered up his rig on battery power and started calling CQ, CQ on 144.200, but at 10am on a Sunday morning, there weren’t all that many folks running SSB on 2 meters. He contacted one ham up in Boerne, TX, but that wasn’t more than 20 miles from his setup location at the park.

Here are some photos….

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I know the weather down here in San Antonio TX was a bit “warm” today, but my van thought it was really, really hot outside! 

So hot, that it caught on fire!  Literally!  

Something apparently exploded under the hood on the passenger side and it would appear that perhaps gas sprayed out onto the street at the corner of Nacogdoches Rd & O’Conner Road (NE Side of San Antonio) and caught fire while I was stopped at the light.   It was a smaller “pop” noise, sort of s like a gas powered lawnmower back-firing might sound, not a big bomb noise like in the movies.

The small explosion happened just as I was stepping the gas pedal as the light turned green.   I was the first car in line in the right lane with lots of traffic stacked behind me and beside me.  

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This month is the 6th anniversary of the www.SanAntonioHams.org web site, and over the years, we ‘ve added a ton of stuff to the site, building upon previous entries and uploads. We’ve done some major revisions, but only in the past year have we added a bunch of new stuff, like this Blog, the online Classified Ads, and the online interactive (for registered users) Events Calendar.

But some of the “old” stuff is still useful!  

• We’ve got listings of most area clubs in Central South Texas, all of the ones in San Antonio, TX of which I’m aware of, and a bunch scattered around the area who requested to be included, all the way over to Corpus Christi, down into the Valley, or west into Medina County. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been running a new Events Calendar on this site for the past few months. Anybody that was raised to “editor” status, has been able to post their own events on the calendar thru the dashboard interface (what you see after you log in as an elevated user).

You have the option to create a post for each event (which appears immediately) or not. If you are posting a series of routine meetings / recurring events, etc., I’d suggest NOT creating a post each time, or we’ll have a bunch of very similar postings all saying we’ve got X’s meeting on July, August, September, October, etc. Boring!

Feel free to contact me direct, info@sanantoniohams.org , if you have questions or ideas about how to use this feature.   The concept behind this feature, is to let others post events, so I don’t have to post them all myself.
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I’m not in the habit of reposting other folks newsletters, at least not on a regular basis, but this web site from over in Germany, has consistently had the answers to my ham radio hardware questions. Their periodic newsletter isn’t so much a newsletter per se, as it is simply a summary of what new postings / updates had been done on their site since the last newsletter. I do highly recommend this site, and suggest that you sign up for their free newsletter if you think you might be looking for a manual or mod in the future.

The content is (c)1996-2009 by mods.dk website, and all content is their responsibility. Having said all that legal jargon, I’ll simply say if you don’t feel comfortable and qualified to make the mods they describe on your equipment, or if you are worried about voiding your warranty, get help. If you are technically challenged and barely know which end of a soldering iron to hold, or where to find Harbor Freight, don’t try to do it yourself, get help.

Now on with their July 2009 newsletter….

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Hill Country REACT Team #4804

Visit us at www.HillCountryREACT.org

We would like top take a chance to invite you to attend the next meeting of Hill Country REACT Team #4804 to hear our guest speaker Skip Stem/WB4DAD talk about CW Operations!

Skip is along time CW Operator and has been working CW on the HF bands for a number of years.  Many of us learned our CW years ago to upgrade our licenses but few us have taken to the air and used this skill.  And many new operators, despite the fact that CW is no longer a requirement to hold an amateur license desire to learn this mode.  So come one, come all and find out what CW is all about!

We meet at the Bulverde Fire Station on Cougar Bend in downtown Bulverde at 1900 (7:00 PM) on the fourth Wednesday of the month.  This month that will be July 22nd.

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Title: Chaparral ARC / GCARES
Location: Guadalupe County Emergency Management Office – 415 E. Donegan – Seguin
Description: Monthly meeting of the Chaparral Amateur Radio Club a.k.a. Guadalupe County ARES. All licensed Amateurs and prospective licensees are welcome to attend!
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2009-09-08

Title: Bandera 100K Ultra-Marathon
Location: Hill Country State Natural Area – Bandera, TX
Link out: Click here
Description: Hill Country REACT and San Antonio Region Amateurs have provided Comms support for this event over the last 5 years. There are 5 fixed and a couple of rover positions to be filled over the 24 hr event. Typically 10-14 operators are needed! Safety, Supply and Tracking logistics are involved. For the 2010 event we are adding Packet to facilitate the tracking logistics, and with some technical help, will provide live internet updates to the families and friends of the participants at home! For more information or to volunteer, contact Louis Upton @mailto:k1stx@yahoo.com (210-687-4347) or Gary Tangrady @ k5gst@live.com. Thank You!
Start Date: 2010-01-09
Start Time: 06:30
End Date: 2010-01-10
End Time: 07:30