San Antonio Hams

The annual 4th of July parade was held in Startzville,Texas, on the south side of Canyon Lake.

As usual for the past 20+ years, the members of Hill Country REACT, with assistance from the HCHams (Hayes / Caldwell County Hams), and a few others, managed the staging area, got everybody lined up in the right order, and merged in the units (like the USAF Band, the horses, & the local dignitaries) when the parade started around 11am.

The parade started with a fly over by the Combined Air Force (used to be Confederate Air Force) based in San Marcos.

We did shoot some video of the parade, with quality of questionable focus, using a new HD Vehicle DVR Recorder mounted inside the front windshield of my van.   Even though I had washed the van the night before, it sprinkled on the way up that morning before dawn, and perhaps some neighborhood birds decided to add their deposits on the way up as well. (Note to self: Wash the window before shooting video thru it next time!)   With the glare of the sun, sometimes the focus wasn’t as sharp as I would have preferred, or expected had I used a real video camera mounted outside the glass.  I’ll post that edited video later on, for those who care to watch it.  It’s clear, just slightly not as clear as I’d prefer, or maybe it’s just my eye glass prescription needing tweaked.  🙂

Here is a list of hams and other volunteers working on behalf of REACT for this event, followed by a gallery of photos taken by either myself or Jake Creamer.

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Hams have the opportunity all year round to use their communications skills & equipment to help out the community & have fun while doing it.  SARO is very active in these events, and helping out with others. There are three major bike tours originating near San Antonio, plus the big daddy of them all that runs from Houston to Austin on the third weekend of April. To keep up on what’s happening in the local  ham world, stay tuned to SanAntonioHams.org/blog.

If you know of any ham related events not included in the list below, please contact Lee N5NTG at info@sanantoniohams.org.  Better yet, why not register as a user on this site, then ask Lee N5NTG to bump your status up so you can directly post your own articles and photos?

Coming up Fall 2011, to a start line near us, will be the following events/ opportunities:

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About 21  radio operators gathered at the Mountain Valley Middle School in Sattler, Texas (just east of Canyon Lake) to help organize the staging area for the 2010 Annual Canyon Lake Christmas Parade at 8am Saturday morning, December 11, 2010.

Hill Country REACT has been organizing this event for more years than we can remember, 14+ years at least.   For the past few years, we’ve been lucky to get help from neighboring ham clubs, and this year was no different.  In addition to members from our own team, we also had volunteers from Travis County REACT (Austin), HC Hams (Hayes / Caldwell), and Guadalupe Valley ARC (GVARC – New Braunfels). Not shown in photo is photographer Lee N5NTG.

Here is a list of radio operators working the event…

• Ray McLeaird            HC REACT
• Charlie Land              HC REACT
• Lee Besing                HC REACT
• David Besing             HC REACT
• Gary Tangrady           HC REACT
• Charles Manley III     HC REACT
• Barbara Manley          HC REACT
• Wade Bolling             HC REACT
• Wade Martyn             HC REACT
• Mike Pérez                HC REACT
• “Skipp” Stem             GVARC
• Samuel Stem            GVARC
• Richard Graham       GVARC
• Chuck Donohoe       GVARC
• Jake Creamer          HCARC/ HC REACT
• Rick Coleman          HCARC
• Bernard Ederer        HCARC
• Dianne Shirey          HCARC
• Bob Shirey               HCARC
• Roger Wines and  4 other Travis County REACT members

This year the parade staging area was changed, reversed from previous years.  The new layout worked much better for us, giving us more room to stretch out the entries.  We had nearly 60 entries this year, and the Shriners counted as just one entry, so you can guess how big it really was.    The parade route was more than 2 miles, starting on the northside of  Sattler, ending on the south end.  Traffic was snarled for more than an hour and a half while the parade was on the main route thru town.

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The Annual Universal City Veteran’s Day Parade will be held this year on November 6th, actually the weekend before the San Antonio Rock N’ Roll Marathon.

We are still in need of more volunteers so if you are available and would like to help please contact me Gary S. Tangrady, K5GST, either at K5GST01@gmail.com or phone me at 210-619-6217. This is my cell phone number and I use it for work, so if I do not answer your call right away feel free to text me or leave me a message.

The parade route is from the staging area on Universal City Boulevard where it will turn left onto Pat Booker and head towards Randolph AFB. It will turn right at Byrd Boulevard just before the main gate into Randolph and from there take the first left and travel to the end of that street and break up at the VFW Post.

Between the hours of 0800 and 0900 people will start showing up at the Universal City Police Department on Universal City Boulevard.  (note: when you come to the front of the building there are two doors, take the door that says Police Station and tell the dispatcher you are there for the parade. He will direct you to the training room where the briefing will be held.) Coffee and donuts will be provided by the police department and I plan on being there at 0800. I need one other person to show up with me at 0800 to run the talk-in on the 147.000 New Braunfels repeater, negative offset with a PL of 88.5.

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Every year, the Hill Country REACT Team has been helping out the with the Christmas Parade in Sattler, Texas, just east of Canyon Lake. We organize and run the two parade staging areas, mix the two together before they hit the parade route, and ensure that the announcer knows about any changes before they reach his or her location. We get the help of a couple neighboring ham clubs from as far away as 50-70 miles (GVARC, HC Hams).

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We’ve put together a collection of photos taken during the December 12, 2009 Christmas parade in Sattler. We’ve already posted one story about it on this blog a day or so ago, the press release that thanked “Hill Country REACT and their unnamed volunteers” (which we then named).   But now, here are some photos from this event, mostly taken toward the back end of the parade lineup area.

We’re working on putting together another one of our videos, this time from footage taken during the parade, but all video editing takes time and computer resources, both which are frequently in short supply and high demand.

Here are our photos…

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We received an advance copy of the news release from the Canyon Lake Christmas Parade Committee about last weekend’s Christmas parade in Sattler (December 12th), written by Valerie Schroller of the Parade Committee.  She was the gal zipping around in that red golf cart taking care of everything and everybody who might have had their political toes stepped on for some reason during the parade. 

I got this from Valerie Schroller.  It went out to the Canyon Lake Views, the Hill Top Reporter, and the Herald-Zeitung.   She said I could forward it to anyone I choose, so I thought you might want to post something using it.  It says “unnamed volunteers”….here is the article and the rest of names of those “unnamed volunteers”.

– Wade Bolling W5ERX, President, Hill Country REACT Team.

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Charlie KC5NKK riding in UC PD Patrol Car

Received this thank you letter in the email box today from UCPD Lt. Steve Denton, who was in charge of the 2009 Annual Veterans Day Parade in Universal City, Texas. 

More than 2 dozen hams and other volunteers assisted the police department with establishing control of traffic prior to the parade beginning, moving barricades into place when instructed by radio, and telling residents or drivers that they shouldn’t turn onto Pat Booker Road once the barricades were in place.  It was the job of the Police Officers to enforce those rules, we just told folks what the rules were, then enjoyed watching the parade.   

We posted lots of photos earlier, following to the November 14th parade date, so here now is the thank you letter addressed to all the hams who helped…

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Gary K5GST loaned out three of his cameras to other hams, and I’m not sure who took what photos from the following collection of parade photos.  

 This was the 39th Annual Veterans Day Parade in Universal City, Texas, held November 14th, 2009.   

Ham Radio Operators, coordinated by Hill Country REACT, worked closely with the Universal City Police Department to control traffic and general safety issues along the parade route.

Enjoy!

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This was the 39th annual Veterans Day parade in Universal City, Texas.    Hill Country REACT organized the hams to support this event, as they have for the past 20+ years.   But without the support of all the non-REACT member hams, this event would not have run as smoothly as it did.

Ham Operator volunteers manned barricades along the parade route, and at 10:15am, the call came over the radio to “put up your barricades, no traffic goes north on the parade route!”    About 5 minutes later, the call went out “stop all traffic on the parade route both directions!”   

Is that a UC PD car behind me?

Two of the UC Police cars had REACT members riding in them, and we had motorcycle marshals cruising the course along with UC PD motorcycle and bicycle police officers.   There were too many side parking lot exits to block them all, so periodically the call came on the radio “watch out for that red car going north from such and such location…”  or “this driver needs to get to work…” or “this driver didn’t know we were having a parade today…”

Our “job” today was not to argue with the drivers or spectators, but simply to inform them of what the UC PD had told us, and to ensure the barricades were in place on time.  We let the UC PD pull over those who wished to press the issue further.

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