Once again, the AARO Ham Club has been tasked with providing Hams to assist the San Antonio Rock & Roll Marathon on Sunday, November 13, 2011. 

We don’t have much time to get this organized, but we need volunteers at every mile marker, and a few other odd ball locations along the route.  We need about 2 dozen (minimum) volunteers to staff each of the assigned positions.

Duties include picking up the timing clocks prior to the event, (See #3 below for details), then being on-site at your assigned location prior to 6am, ready to turn them on when Dave Espinoza W5QS gives us the countdown over the radio.  We’ll send out exact locations for those of you who sign up to work the event.

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Morris E. Sullivan KG5CP went to be with the Lord on September 4, 2011 in San Antonio, Texas. He was born on March 14, 1931 in Harlingen, Texas to Morris D. Sullivan and Rosa Mae Hack Sullivan.

Mr. Sullivan served in the Korean War with the U.S. Marine Corps and in the Vietnam War with the U.S. Air Force.

He was a volunteer firefighter for the N.W. San Antonio Volunteer Fire Dept. and was also involved with Rainfall Net on HAM Radio, which reported rainfall to the National Weather Service. He was an accomplished woodworker and avid gardener. He was a computer enthusiast, having technical aptitudes and capabilities to troubleshoot the most difficult of problems.

Mr. Sullivan loved dogs, and held a special place in his heart for his canine friends. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Nellie Selk Sullivan; daughters, Debbie Spencer (Walter), Sue Hosack (Curtis), Cathy Letson (Tony), Brenda Sullivan (Larry), Sherrie Sullivan (Chris); son, Wayne Sullivan (Renee); 8 grandchildren; and 6 great-grandchildren.

SERVICES A Graveside Service will be held on Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 2:00PM at Mission Burial Park North, 20900 IH-10 West, San Antonio, Texas 78257, with military honors. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the American Cancer Society , 8115 Datapoint, San Antonio, Texas 78229.

“National Guard Helicopters drop supplies to support towns completely cut off due to Hurricane Irene” “No power, phone or roads to towns hard hit by Hurricane Irene”

I’m sure you’ve seen the videos of cars being swept down swollen rivers in Vermont. Who would have ever thought that a coastal hurricane would dump so much water over land-locked Vermont to cause such devastation! This reminds me of the time back in the late 1990’s when I was dropped along with supplies in to a town in upstate New York to supply emergency communications during the North East Ice Storm. It’s just another reminder that emergency communications teams must be prepared for any event. This is also a glaring reminder that we need well-trained “Jump Teams” in every area to assist with emergency communications support. EVERY local emergency communications group needs to have a Jump Team on hand to help cope with this type of disaster. Just as it happened in Vermont, it could happen in Texas. Towns being cut off. No power. No communications.

 If you don’t know how to start a Jump Team, or what your team would need, just go to this website for information and support: http://www.texasmars.com/

 Bob W2IK

Ladies and gentleman, we did an outstanding job of organizing and fighting the attempted take over of simplex Freq by the Digital Repeater folks. There was some very spirited debate going on at the meeting (TX VHF-FM Summer Meeting in Austin, 8/5/2011)  with a strong force against this proposed Band Plan change. 

I am glad so many of us put forth an effort to get the word out to fight, I believe had we not done so the Band Plan would have passed and we would have lost some valued frequencies. As it is they the vote was just about 2:1 against the proposed band plan change with 58 against and 26 in favor.

As a note, it was a big surprise to find out the Armadilo group was not supporting in and most of them were against the plan as well, so shows you how fast misinformation can spread.  I appologize for my repeating such rumors.

WE WON FOLKS!

After the vote, a motion for a very solid method of dealing with the digital/analog situation was proposed and it made sense for all parties there and should pass next year. Check out the Texas VHF FM society web page for exact details.

But this shows that if we organize and fight for what we believe in, we can overcome. Thanks to all who voted this ill conceived idea down.

Greg Lewis/N5XO
n5xo@satx.rr.com

I came away from the San Antonio meeting (8/1/2011) with the Texas VHF Society very disappointed. First off, based on the wide range of comments, complaints, etc from hams around town on the air and via e-mail I expected a much greater turn out, the turn out was a major disappointment. People if we do not stand up and count, we are going to lose a chunk of our simplex freq and it was CLEARLY JUST A STARTING POINT.

First off, the Texas VHF Society reps stated they are trusties of the band based on ruling by the FCC. Well if they are trusties then they represent ALL HAM RADIO OPERATORS, not the special interest groups in Houston, etc. In a case that impacts all of Texas Hams, I think it is inexcusable that you have to pay to vote on an issue that impacts us. On this issue, if you have a Ham lic then you should have a vote. A select group should not be able to run roughshod over thousands of ham radio operators.

I went to this meeting yesterday thinking they were looking for input from ham radio operators around the state and that a solid voice could help make a difference. That is not what the meeting was about, it was to tell us what they planned and basically that we needed to LIVE WITH IT.

Multiple things about this band plan concern me.

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We received a batch of photos from the AARO President, Andrew Watson K5NNN, taken during their field day on June 25th at Raymond Russel Park, on the NW side of San Antonio.

Click the link below to see the gallery of photos –

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Wow! This was a great Field Day! It was one of the best that I have attended with the club in my ten years. We worked 45 States and and 4 of 8 Canadian provinces! The states we missed were RI, Nevada, Alaska, Wyoming and West Virginia. Other than those states we only missed two other US sections North New York and Virgin Islands. So out of 71 ARRL in the US sections we only missed seven!!!! We had 444 QSO’s in the log which is way up! This is due mostly to the excellent PSK31 operators!! A big thanks to all that came out to make this so successful, safe and fun!!

Paul Guido, N5IUT

Thank you to all !!!

Wow….. AA5RO Field Day was the best !! We had over 80 hams that showed up to the Big event… We had 5 new members that join the club  and made many contacts.

Thank you to Martin for the antenna building Class. Martin’s class built over ten ladder line antennas and had lots of good fun.

Walt had a great class and we would like to see Walt teach his class to the whole club at a future meeting.

Tony our club V.P. did a great job cooking for the club and landing the Field Day spot at Raymond Russell Park.

Thank you to all the Volunteer’s and Members that made this a great Field Day..

Andrew, K5NNN
AARO Club President

“AA5RO ROCKS”
THE # 1 RADIO CLUB IN TEXAS!