San Antonio Repeater Organization

This is the June edition of the SanAntonioHams.org Ham Radio Community Newsletter. Currently there are only about 300+ hams on this list. If you know anyone who would like to be added, have them send their name, call and email address to info@sanantoniohams.org. We love hearing from you, especially those with good comments and other constructive observations.

Anyway, we hope that this information will be welcomed and useful to the majority of you, but knowing there might be a few wanting to "opt-out" completely, and wanting to comply with the various "can-spam" requirements, etc., this message was sent to {EmailAddress}.

And we do promise to update that durn calendar of events page soon also! It's only current thru June as of today, but June is almost over. Once Field Day gets out of our way, I promise to spend time updating the site with current events, like the July 4th Parade in Startzville (hams needed by REACT to assist) or the the Austin Summerfest in August 7th & 8th (note the date!) We've been experimenting with a new blog based calendar of events, that would allow other authorized hams to post events direct to the site, without my intervention. Check out that calendar by clicking on "Calendar" once you are on the Blog site.

In This Month's (Correct) Newsletter...

ARRL 2009 Field Day

We've prepared a web page with coverage of most all local ham clubs who are participating in our area, so if you info about the groups who are not running FD as part of the combined event in San Antonio, Click Here

Full coverage of the San Antonio Combined Field Day event has been posted online at our Blog, so if you have been following that site closely, you already know most of this information. Some of this has also been sent out via the various email lists, for Bexar County ARES, Hill Country REACT and San Antonio Radio Club.

K5EOC is the Call Sign to be used,
7-Alpha, South Texas, is the designation (7A STX)

Saturday Afternoon Talk-in available on the 147.180 Repeater,
Courtesy of Hill Country REACT Team
(does NOT count toward FD points, please use 146.52 for FD points also)

Click Here for a Chronological List of All Field Day Postings

Less Than 2 Days ’til Field Day, Are You Ready?

Field day is just around the corner, so to speak, and if you aren’t already lined up to participate, what are you waiting for? This year we are holding a combined Field Day in San Antonio at the San Antonio Fire Fighters’ Training Academy on Callahan Road, near Hwy 151 (west of downtown SA, north of Hwy 90, inside Loop 410)

An invitation was made to all ham clubs / groupsin the San Antonio metro area, asking them if they wanted to participate.

In order to be a “named sponsor / participant”, your club / group needed top commit to sponsoring / staffing a station on the air for the full 24 hour period of the event. If you can’t handle that level of commitment, you can still participate, but won’t be named in the press releases, etc., as one of the sponsoring clubs. With the cross membership between clubs, that ought not be difficult to accomplish.

And if you just want to come out to “play” with us, you don’t need to be a member of any of the sponoring clubs.

One restriction you should know about – No vehicle traffic in/out of the Field Day Site after dark (about 8:30pm) and until sunrise (about 6:30am). That’s the rules of our host. But you can park outside in the front parking lot, and walk in/out thru the side gate. Only the vehicle gate will be secured at dusk by the Fire Department on scene for security purposes. So if you think you might need to leave in the night, park out front in the parking lot, don’t drive into the inner area.

Oh, and there was a 2nd restriction as well. No alcohol. If you want to drink and operate, you’ll need to go visit one of the other Field Day sites in the surrounding counties, or hold your own. The City of San Antonio has a rule forbidding consumption (or the presence ) of any type alchohol drink on the grounds of this facility. There should be some containers of water, tea and / or lemonade available for the visiting / participating hams and guests, but individual stations are usually planning to bring more supplies for each station as well.

Some stations will be "roughing it" by operating inside air conditioned vehicles or trailers, while others will operate the "normal way" by setting up under an awning or pop-up tent outdoors.

Dinner is scheduled for around 7pm on Saturday, to allow for the temps to cool down a bit more first. Hams should bring either $3 to chip in, or some food (enough for 3 persons) as side dishes to contribute. Our non-ham visitors will generally NOT be asked to chip in. Some of the participating ham clubs have helped contribute toward the purchase of the meat, etc., being prepared on-site for this meal. Please RSVP Teri KC5BJI @ 210-680-6841 to help with the head count for the meal if you think you will be there for it.

Click on any thumbnail image to see larger full sized view of that map. Already there are at least six groups committed to sponsoring at least one station, possibly more. The organizers are working to coordinate bands and modes to keep us in compliance with the rules set out by ARRL for this event.

We will use generator or battery power for our radios (and any laptops used for digital modes) but can use available AC power for our air conditioning, fans, laptops used for logging (only), etc. The City of San Antonio’s Fire Department / Emergency Management is fully supportive of this event.

Come be a part of making ham history in San Antonio. We hope this will be just the start of a new San Antonio Ham Tradition.

New Classified Ads - Free Service

We’ve been testing a new Classified Ads module for this Blog, where visitors to the site can post free classified ads, for sale, for trade, wanted, etc. I’ve already created a few common categories and sub categories for most ham related stuff, but if you find that we need to add another category, please contact me via email to suggest a category.

You can access the Classified Ads direct from the top menu bar, where it says “Home” “About” and “Classified Ads“. I suspect you can figure out which one to click on, without too much more thought.

One person’s junk, is another person’s treasure, thus the reason we have Ham Radio Swapfests year around. But what happens between those events? Got some extra / unused Ham Radio gear you want to sell or trade? Looking to buy some used gear? Post a new Classified, or Browse our Classifieds posted by other hams.

At this time, all classified ad services on this site are free, but we reserve the right to change this policy in the future, especially if folks want to post “for profit” listings here.

Default time length of any posted ad is 60 days, with up to 750 words in the ad description, and up to 4 images allowed to be uploaded per ad. If you sell / trade your item, please update your ad, or withdraw it when no longer needed. If you find what you’re looking for, please cancel your ad.

This site is intended to be mostly focused on Amateur Radio / Ham Radio items and related topics, but we put some categories in for Computers since we all use them, and then we had requests for selling / renting houses and selling vehicles, so we added them too.

No postings offering anything illegal, sexual, or dealing with alcohol or tobacco will be permitted. We’re really not wanting to become the next job search site, or Apartment / House hunting site, but we won’t turn those down until we figure out what direction our visitors want to move toward.

Current Top Headlines

Visit SanAntonioHams.org on a regular basis for the latest news about what's happening in the San Antonio, TX area. If you want to post your own Ham News, contact us and we'll make it possible. All posting is subject to moderation, and all comments are moderated the first time a person makes a posting. That's to cut down on possible Spam posters, etc.

Remember, if you never want receive this type of electronic newsletter from us again, use the "opt out" info listed at the start of this email letter. But we hope you enjoyed it, and will stick around for more next month.

San Antonio Area Hams

Serving the Amateur Radio Community in San Antonio and South Central Texas since 2003

June 25, 2009 - Field Day Update

In This Month's (Correct) Newsletter...

ARRL 2009 Field Day

Click Here for a Chronological List of All Field Day Postings

Less Than 2 Days ’til Field Day, Are You Ready?

New Classified Ads - Free Service

Latest Classifieds

Current Top Headlines