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).
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…
N5NTG | 
Bexar Operators Group, Chaparral ARC, GVARC, REACT, SARC, Skywarn, Special Event Station | 
12 17th, 2009| 
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Okay, the long wait is finally over! We’ve compressed 24 hours of operation down to about 5 minutes, without using the fast forward button. Amazing, but true! Of course since we weren’t personally there the whole time to take photos and videos of every single operator, we weren’t able to include more than the three operators shown in the video (recorded live) plus a few others that had their photos taken and forwarded to us.
Most of the footage in the video was provided by Lee N5NTG, with some by Bob W2IK and Wade W5ERX.
Here is the YouTube link to this video…
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.
Tonight was the first meeting of the 2010 San Antonio Repeater Organization (SARO) newly elected Board of Directors. Four (4) new directors had been elected by the members this month to serve a 2 year term of office. Only about half of the SARO members returned a ballot in the election. SARO mails paper ballots to every member in good standing (ie. their dues got paid) by the first of November. Ballots are generally due by sometime in the 2nd week (this year it was December 11th).
Elected were Lee N5NTG, Pat AD5BR, Bob K5AUW, and Gary K5GST. Their term of office is thru end of 2011. Outgoing directors were Sharon Olson KB5KZD, Chuck Kenworthey WB5FWI, and Royce Taylor KA5OHJ.
Hill Country REACT Team is the sponsor of a new Ham Radio Repeater in the Canyon Lake area.
The repeater is located about a mile southwest of Startzville and the antenna is up at about 1670 feet above sea level. The antenna was measured as being about 390 feet up in the air on the tower, and the base of the tower is at 1280 feet above sea level.
The repeater frequency is 444.450 mHz, positive offset, and with a 114.8 PL tone. The repeater is intended to be for open use by all hams.
Testing has shown excellent coverage from north San Antonio up to south Austin, and all points between, using mobile radios. The Trustee is Wade W5ERX, currently the president of Hill Country REACT. He had the assistance of a couple other hams, including the newly appointed Comal County EC, Don Kirchner W5DK, and Gene Rowell WA5PAX, to build /prepare the repeater and finally install it at its new home. The repeater is a coordinated frequency with the Texas VHF-FM Society and tower hosting is being provided by BKT Towers.
On Thursday, December 3rd, 2009, Pat & I went north to Boerne to attend the KARS Christmas Dinner at the Boerne Vistro on Main Street. Food was wonderful, and if anybody left there hungry, well… All I can say is that it was their own fault! They had a wonderful buffet with several selections, and most of us chose that option. A few ordered from the menu, and a few of us even risked ordering from the dessert menu afterward.
Here are my photos from that night…
All year long, there are opportunities for you to use your Ham Radio skills in events other than contesting, or rag chewing (chatting mindlessly with other hams about nothing in particular).
Coming up in the next couple of months, the event schedule is a bit lighter than the rest of the year, primarily due to all the holidays, or is it?
After the remodeling of my shack I still have the following items for sale that I would like to sell asap. If anyone is interested let me know and we can work out a deal……
On the morning of Saturday, November 21st, Gary K5GST and Lee N5NTG took a field trip up to New Braunfels, having breakfast with members of the Guadalupe Valley Amateur Radio Club at their favorite restaurant, Los Gallos on Loop 337 near Commons Street.
After stuffing ourselves on some very excellent Mexican breakfast food, we poured ourselves into Gary’s truck and headed further north on IH-35, looking for the San Marcos Public Library on East Hopkins Street. This was the location of a meeting for the Hayes Caldwell Hams, a group of hams who has been very active in our recent Hurricane Evacuation Drills. They were showing a movie from CQ Magazine about Ham Radio, produced in 1994, before the spread of the Internet and Email addresses.
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