by Stan Waghalter
Put Wednesday, December 8th on your calendar for our Christmas/Holiday Party.
NOTE: This is a new location.
The party will be held at La Hacienda de Los Barrios, 18747 Redland Road.
Party starts at 6PM.
This year, the grand prize will be a Yaesu FTM-300DR. 2nd Prize will be a Yaesu FT-70DR. There will be other prizes to be won as well.
Hosted by AARO & SARC
The 78th Battle of Flowers® Band Festival, will be held on April 21, 2016, and is entitled “Texas Traditions…125 Years!”
The location venue has moved back to the original Alamo Stadium (located at Trinity University, Hwy 281 and Hildebrand) now that the stadium has been remodeled.
Students from more than 30 high school bands from San Antonio and surrounding areas will join forces to present an entertaining musical evening that is undoubtedly one of Fiesta’s most popular events. Some of the highlights will include Herald Trumpets saluting Fiesta royalty, parades of high stepping bands with colorful flags and twirlers, and specially chosen feature bands performing their award-winning UIL shows for the crowd. At the end of the evening, all 4,800 musicians will perform together on the field in a spectacular crowd-pleasing finale set to fireworks!
The SARO Ham Club has coordinated communications for this event for longer than most hams can remember. While members of the club are given preference for assignments, non-member hams are invited to volunteer as well. This is an evening / night time event during the week on a Thursday night. Volunteers need to be in place as early as 4:30pm and the event will last about 5 hours. Hand Held radios with earphones / plugs will be needed for most assignments due to the noise. Some assignments may require lots of walking or standing. The hams coordinate the starting line of the bands entering the competition area, calling in the school names to the announcer ham shadow, plus coordinating the arrival of any Fiesta Royalty VIPs with the announcers as well.
Please contact SARO President MaryAnn Horn N5MYN via email N5MYN@SARepeater.Net or via phone (during non-work hours only please) at 210-380-6560 (voice/text).
K5STX | 
AARO, ACARC, Bexar Operators Group, Canyon Lake ARC, Chaparral ARC, Corpus Christi ARC, General Ham Radio, Guadalupe ARES, GVARC, Ham Club, HAMster Group, Hayes Caldwell ARES, HC Hams, KARS, MCARC, Public Service, QCWA, REACT, ROOST, SARC, SARO, STXDXCC, Texas VHF-FM Society, Unusual Suspects Club, W2IK | 
02 7th, 2016| 
No Comments »Morning all!
Event: AERC Heart of the Hills Endurance Ride
Dates: 5th and 6th March 2016
Location: Hill Country State Natural Area – Bandera
Times: 0700 hrs to 1700 hrs – assignment times very based on Checkpoint.
Help is needed on both days, but, if you can only work one of the other, your assistance is greatly appreciated.
Operators will be responsible for tracking the progress of Horse/Rider thru the course at 4 different checkpoints. We also handle in health/welfare information and other task as submitted by the event coordinator/manager.
3 checkpoints should be able to contact net control with ht and a gain antenna. One checkpoint is a little more challenging requiring a mobile unit, possibly crossband.
Comms will be VHF simplex.
RMS Express/Packet will be utilized during the event. Packet not required to participate.
Most checkpoints are easily accessible by car or truck. One will require a truck with moderate clearance.
If your are interested please contact Charlie Land at charlesdland at gmail dot com or Mike Perez at mikerey01 at yahoo dot com
Event is coordinated by Hill Country REACT – membership not required to participate.
Thank You,
Hill Country REACT – Team # 4804 – President
Tejas Trails Communication Group – Cactus Rose and Bandera 100k Ultra-Marathons – Coordinator
K5STX | AARO, ACARC, ARES, Bexar Operators Group, Canyon Lake ARC, Chaparral ARC, Corpus Christi ARC, Disaster Response, Emergency Preparedness, General Ham Radio, Guadalupe ARES, GVARC, Ham Club, HAMster Group, Hayes Caldwell ARES, HC Hams, KARS, MARS, MCARC, Public Service, QCWA, REACT, ROOST, SARC, SARO, Skywarn, STXDXCC, Texas VHF-FM Society, W2IK | 05 24th, 2015| No Comments »The Skywarn Operators at the Austin-San Antonio NWO are in the process of updating our files and call-up list. Recently we have found the EC’s, Skywarn Coordinators and Net Controls have changed drastically in the various counties we serve.
It has also been found that several repeaters used in the past to contact and monitor Skywarn operations have changed or are no longer functioning.
If someone from each county could please e-mail me the contact information, frequencies and other pertinent information for ARES and Skywarn it would be greatly appreciated.
Also be advised that we have created a Facebook page and Twitter account to help get the word out. Feel free to like or follow to stay up to date with our operations.
Thank You, Louis – K5STX
e-mail to wx5exw at gmail dot com
Local Time: 1800 hrs Friday December 5th to 1800 hrs Saturday December 6th, 2014
This annual event is always the first Friday / Saturday of December each year. Ham Operators, operating from their local National Weather Service Offices around the country, are trying to contact as many other NWS offices as possible during a 24 hour period that runs from 6pm CDT Friday until 6pm CDT Saturday. Modes used include VHF/UHF,HF, Internet Enhanced (EchoLink, and IRLP) and various digital modes..
Access is limited at the local NWS office due to space constraints and the fact that the meteorologists are actively working in the same room, so the noise level and disruption factor is a concern.
Operators are scheduled to work in groups of no more than 3 in multiples of 2 hour shifts!
All classes of licensed Amateur Radio Operators are encouraged to participate. This is a great opportunity for Technician class operators to get some HF time in the early morning shifts with a General or Extra class on the roster!
Visitors are limited to those who RSVP before the event! No drop in visitors! Please, if you would like to come by just to visit, you MUST be on the roster!
To volunteer for a 2 hour shift or more, Contact event coordinator Louis – K5STX at k5stx@k5stx.net or k5stx@hillcountryreact.org! Sign up early, the based slots go fast!
Members of SARO and other hams helped out again at the annual Battle of the Bands Festival, sponsored by the Battle of Flowers Parade organization. SARO was the coordinating club for communication shadows at this event.
The following 7 hams worked this event…
I took some photos and video of the event, but haven’t had time to do any editing of the video. But I did find out the organizers posted the full length video from the event on YouTube (was supposed to be on Ustream.tv), so you can now watch it there. I’ve been told that I was spotted in the video out on the north end of the field taking my own videos. I was wearing my lime green / orange reflective vest and dark pants that day.
Here is the video from YouTube…
Coordinating this year’s event is MaryAnne N5MYN, Charlie KC5NKK, and Lee N5NTG.
C
harlie KC5NKK is the point of contact for ham volunteers and assignments. MaryAnne N5MYN is interfacing with the Tour Director and event staff. Lee N5NTG is coordinating the SAG teams, van pick-up and day of the event assignments.
We know that we need a minimum of 32 amateur licensed volunteers. In addition, we would really like to have co-pilots for the SAGs (amateur license not required).
Below is some information about what we’ll need in order to cover this event “at a minimum.” Obviously, we want to exceed this minimum and be ready to do this ride the right way, the SARO way!
At present time (7/25/2013), we have 29 who have said “yes” plus 4 SAG co-pilots, so we have a lot of recruiting to do yet. We would like to have at least 5 “spares” to cover last minute cancellations. If you have friends or acquaintances (or even people you don’t like) who would consider helping (licensed or not) please contact them and let us know if you get any interest.
There will be some route changes, mostly on Day 1, such as avoiding FM1346 thru St. Hedwig. After many years, and no repairs being made to the large cracks along this stretch of FM1346, some big enough to swallow a rider and his/her bicycle (just kidding), the route committee decided enough was enough.
The new route on Day 1 drops south and goes around St. Hedwig, which forced the one rest stop. In addition. one of the churches we normally used in the past, apparently has a wedding scheduled for that weekend and for some strange reason, the bridal party didn’t think that them working a rest stop would fit into their plans.
We need several things from you. We need a volunteer agreement executed. The strongest preference is to do it on line. Instructions will be emailed to you when you sign up to work this event. This form is required of every volunteer for each event. Even if you helped with the BP ride this Spring, this form needs to be executed again for our ride. The main reason for doing one for each event is this is the way that the MS office knows who you are so they can send you “thank you’s” and appreciation party invitations.
The San Antonio Repeater Organization has unveiled a brand new website design, same address, with lots of new features for sharing information about the club to both the public and to its members.
Please check the new website out at Sarepeater.net when you have a moment. Website design and hosting for the club has been provided by Lee N5NTG, as usual. Additional work is on-going, therefore you will see some changes to the layout or design from time to time.
All SARO members are encouraged to register on the website for access to the member only area, using their Amateur Radio Call Sign as their userID.
The following letter (from REACT) was hand delivered to SARO at their membership meeting on January 27th. The SARO membership subsequently passed a motion at that same meeting, to authorize the SARO board to spend up to $5,000 for obtaining the services of a tower crew and needed hardware to finish this project ASAP.
Nearly 2 years ago, Hill Country REACT purchased a 1283 ft long’ spool of 1-5/8″ foam core Anderson Heliax, and reserved it for the completion of the 147.14 restoration project, but if the project remains unlikely to move forward, this valuable resource will be reassigned, or sold by, REACT for other more feasible projects. – Lee N5NTG
SARO has resumed publishing quarterly issues of the SARO Bulletin, their club newsletter. The newsletters are open for reading by the general public, and the January 2012 issue can be read using the link below.
NEXT SARO Memberhip Meeting – Friday, January 27th. See website or newsletter for details.
THE SARO BULLETIN (CLUB NEWSLETTER) IS BACK!
Eric Olson, WB5ZJQ, is the new editor.
Check out the newest issue on the Bulletin webpage, or click on the image to the left of this notice. This file is in Adobe Reader format (PDF) and is 33kb in size
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