San Antonio Hams

About 4 dozen hams showed up for the summer membership meeting of the San Antonio Repeater Organization tonight.  The venue was Martha’s Mexican Restaurant, on the corner of Huebner Road & Babcock Rd, on the NW side of San Antonio. 

Reports were made on the status of the various repeaters, what needed fixed and what needed upgraded.  Reports were made on a few past events, but the focus was more on what was coming up in the next few events regarding public service.   

A presentation was made by the La Vernia Wildwest Hammerfest bike ride to be held on September 19th, asking for SARO’s support.   They brought t-shirts from last year’s (canceled) event, to offer to those who would have worked it, had Hurricane Ike not caused a cancellation.

Heavy discussion held regarding the new requirement by the National MS needing volunteers to undergo a background check for criminal and drivers license records.  Most discussion focusing the the ability to do credit checks even though that type check wasn’t being paid for by the National MS.  The local BikeMS will be held October 3rd and 4th, running from San Antonio thru Seguin to New Braunfels, and back on day 2.  GVARC ham club has offered the use of their repeater system for this event, plus will try to get some ham volunteers to help work it.

At the July membership meeting of the Hill Country REACT Team held up in Bulverde, TX at the Bulverde VFD on Cougar Bend Rd & FM 1863, Wednesday night (07/22), the guest speaker was GVARC member Skip WB4DAD talking and demonstrating ways to learn CW and encouraging the members to give CW a try on the air.

You could tell by watching Skip, that he really enjoys his CW.   He demonstrated three different types of keyers, a couple of paddles and a straight key.

For more info about Hill Country REACT Team or their upcoming events, please visit their website at www.hillcountryreact.org or join their yahoo group “hillcountryreact”.

For all amateur operators: 

The maiden voyage of the Iowa QSO Party will occur on Saturday, October 17th running nine hours from 1400Z (9AM CDT) to 2300Z (6PM CDT). Prizes and certificates will be awarded to top scorers for instate mobile, instate fixed, and out of state fixed stations. Logs and summary sheets must be received on or before November 17th,2009.  Rules are available on the web page: http://www.wa0dx.org/iaqsoparty.html

Sponsoring the event will be the Ottumwa Amateur Radio Club. Working their club call, WA0DX, will earn a 100 point bonus. Special multipliers will be earned for working the three present or past Section Managers who live in the state (SM1, SM2, and SM3). Questions go to N0SM at ARRL.NET.

Note: While the website is live now, there may be some minor changes yet.  We should have things settled by August 15th.  

Joe Hoepfner, KE0J
ARRL Iowa Section ACC

Our regular readers will remember a posting we made earlier (June 12, 2009) about an Emergency Go-Kit Idea that involved some minor surgery to a Stanley Toolbox with wheels, by adding a couple of sealed lead acid batteries in the bottom compartment, a 12 volt 30 amp Pyramid power supply, a 300 watt DC to AC power converter, a home-brew battery charging circuit, etc.

I’ve made some more progress on this project, adding an external on/off  switch to control the exhaust / cooling fan on the side of the toolbox, and adding an external AC power plug on the other side to make it more convenient to plug in up to two AC devices to the emergency go-kit toolbox.   Of course, I suppose you could use a power strip to plug in more, but the circuit is limited to 15 amps and the converter will only handle 300 watts.  I’ve labeled the exterior plug warning of the limitations, and also have a surge reset button mounted nearby.

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Don’t forget that SARO is holding their quarterly membership meeting this Friday at Martha’s Mexican Restaurant (Corner of Babcock Rd & Huebner) on the NW side of San Antonio. SARO president Erik Olsen reminds members and visitors that they “need not buy a meal or drink” if they choose to attend, but aren’t interested in eating.  Meeting starts at 7:30pm, but feel free to come early if you want to eat prior to the meeting, rather than during the meeting.  Visitors are always welcomed.

Program this time will be fairly short, primarily dealing with past events (like field day) and the two major upcoming public service events that SARO is responsible for coordinating, i.e. the LaVernia Wild West Hammerfest bike ride in September and the BikeMS event in October.  Come learn more about how to volunteer for these events. 

One note:  2009 BikeMS volunteers are being required to submit for a background check, no credit check involved, just criminal background check.  Those volunteers who worked the BPMS150 Houston to Austin ride last April have already had their checks completed and do not need to have it done a second time within 12 months.

More info @ SARO’s website, www.sarepeater.net

The Bexar Operators Group has closed the availability of our late October, three  day “Jump Team Boot Camp” session as we have reached both our limits of registered applicants and  filled a short standby list.

I did turn away a few people, such as a father and son team from the mid-west who wanted to “audit” (just watch) the event. This boot camp is only for the “doer” and all participants are expected to do everything so they can be prepared for any real emergency event.

Some slots were filled by hams from North Texas, Army MARS and hams from the mid-west. There were no hams from South Texas who wanted to attend. I may have to make some minor adjustments to the timing of the event in order to accommodate people coming in from out of state and so the personnel teaching survival skills can be available. 

I probably will have a few of the special 200+ page session guides available after the event, replete with any additions made during the event, for sale to others.

Bob  W2IK – NNN0KSI – NNN0GBY2  STX NAVMC MARS Ecom

Last Friday afternoon, I managed to take some time to get over to my favorite Sign Company, Art-Trig Corporation, in Leon Valley.  They’re located just off off Bandera Road 1 block south of Huebner Road on Sawyer Road.   I stopped by the carwash first to get the van cleaned up for putting my new signs on the windows, but shortly after I arrived at Art-Trig, it started raining!  🙁

Yay! for the rain, but Boo! for the timing.  I mean, just washed the van, needed to get the lettering installed, it hasn’t rained for days, but now it decides to rain?  Oh well, we needed the rain really bad.   Fortunately, the rain stopped for about 2o minutes and let them dry off the windows long enough to apply the lettering to the  back window and two rear side windows.   10 minutes later, here comes the rain again, heavier than ever!

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Experience outer space right in our back yard! This exciting event will feature NASA astronauts, hands-on activities, space exhibits and feature presentations for the whole family. Meet former NASA Astronaut Rick Hieb and John Blaha, shoot model rockets and ride the Rockit Rider in this informative and exciting atmosphere. Free with museum admission. For more information call 210.357.1910 or go to www.amazingskies.org.

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Howdy Roosters,  I submitted our Field Day report online to the ARRL yesterday evening.  I will mail in our logs for our backup documentation.

Operating score:    1,605
Bonus points:         670
Total:              2,275

I bet we gave the Super Field Day folks a run for the money!  That’s a helluva score, guys.  You’ll notice under Club Name it says “None”: only clubs operating A, B, or F can operate under the club name – we were operating E.  I don’t really understand the distinction.

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Planning is good, but sometimes even the best planning needs some “tweaking” in the real world.

Being flexible in field contesting, just as in emergency communications deployment, is the best way to get things done.  All ham radio operators need the experience of going out in to the field to do this sort of thing. It makes them better operators.

I tend to over pack my truck when it comes to doing ham radio events, and for good reason: You never know what obstacles you might encounter and how to overcome them. However, this time I had a minimal amount of gear and supplies. This was the height of my “daring”. Never again!

Lesson number one learned: Pack for the worst, pray for the best and be happy with the in between. New hams need to remember this

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