Tonight was the big night, the night that all three candidates running for the vacancy of ARRL South Texas Section Manager would speak in person before the San Antonio Radio Club during their regular monthly membership meeting.
Amazingly enough, all three candidates showed up on time and spoke, along with current SM Ray Taylor N5RAV who is “retiring” from that position (with no pension provided), and SEC Mike Schwartz, KG5TL.
The Alamo Area Repeater Organization (AARO) held their monthly membership meeting on the NW side of town in Martha’s Mexican Restaurant, corner of Babcock Rd & Huebner Rd. 3 dozen plus hams gathered to hear about what happened on Field Day, discuss the possibility of being becoming an ARRL Affiliated Club (they voted to do it), and listen to Lee Cooper W5LHC of Austin, who talked about recent legisture that might affect ham radio; what passed, what didn’t pass, and what is still pending.
GVARC reports that they did about double the number of QSO’s during this year’s FD as compared with last year, but then again, last year was a last minute shuffle from their “usual” place at the Comal County Fairgrounds over to Mike’s house on River Road with less than 2 hours to get set up for FD, and perhaps some members didn’t know how to find the new place (which was really comfy by the way). Here’s GVARC’s Field Day results: 350 QSOs for 593 points ( last year was 184 QSOs for 234 points ). Plus the mutiplier of course.
W2IK | 
ARES, Disaster Response, General Ham Radio, MARS, New Hams, Public Service, W2IK | 
07 2nd, 2009| 
No Comments »
The much shortened version of my full 3-day Jump Team Boot Camp which was offerred for a July date has been cancelled due to not enough interested parties signing up.
This was to include such sections as site survey before structures are erected, sheltering and how/where to properly put them up, station operating posts, antenna building and erection, power generation, food support/dining areas, message handling, troubleshooting your station, propagation, water purification, basic survival techniques, creating a complete EmComm cache of gear to have on the ready, etc.
All participants would have been exposed to every phase so they would have been able to “do it all” from scratch in case of an emergency, with session taught by a team of experienced communicators and also survival experts from the military.
Note: My full 3-day boot-camp is still being held in late October. We will go through the same steps needed to set up and run a complete emergency communications complex at a location where nothing would be standing and included will be a comprehensive book/guide enabling people to start their own emergency communications jump team in their area.
Bob W2IK
Don’t know much about what happened out in Kendall County (Boerne) at this year’s Field Day event, but judging from the photos that Jim Mastrogiovani KK5RZ posted, it looks like they had fun doing it… (That’s Jim with the cigar in the photo to the right.)
This location typically has lots of shade, with a huge metal roof overhead, but not sure how cool it was underneath.
Anyway, here are some of the photos from the KB5TX Kendall Amateur Radio Society Field Day event.
Enjoy….
W2IK | Bexar Operators Group, Field Day, General Ham Radio, MARS, W2IK | 07 1st, 2009| No Comments »
Besides the deer, “Murphy” came out in force when the Bexar Operators Group, W5BOG, assembled for their Field Day 2009 operation at Lost Maples State Park.
Despite “Murphys” best efforts, the Group would not bend whether it be from the 108 degree heat, no wind to drive the wind turbine, lack of park water and sewage due to a clogged septic system, the searing sun which blasted our digital camera after only a few shots nor the nearest ice machine being 5 miles outside the park entrance.
We’ve just added a new club listing for Chaparral Amateur Radio Club in Seguin, TX, aka Guadalupe County ARES, bringing us up to 31 clubs / groups listed on that page.
Our thanks to Louis K1STX for bringing this information to our attention. Louis wears many hats (i.e. belongs to many clubs) like so many of us hams do now a days, but that’s the only way we are able to keep this site current with news.
We invite anyone else who has updated club or ham radio news, to post it on our site.
Just registed as a user on the Blog, and then contact Lee N5NTG via email to request “author” privileges. All articles are subject to editing / moderation by Lee (since he’s responsible for the site), but you’ll find Lee to be fairly lenient when it comes to posting topics. We prefer to restrict postings to information that might possibly be of interest to hams in the South Central area of Texas, but sometimes you’ll find stuff in there “just because.”
Hill Country REACT will be coordinating the annual 4th of July parade up at Startzville, TX, on the south side of Canyon Lake again this year. Hams from any club are welcome to participate, you do not need to be a REACT member in order to volunteer to work this event. Some members of REACT, GVARC and Hayes Caldwell ARES are already scheduled for this event.
Parade line-up starts around 9am, but we need to be in place before then. The parade usually starts at 11am, once the Confederate Air Force completes their traditional annual fly-over. Clean your car / truck / suv / RV / mini-van / motorcycle and be ready to jump in line at the back of the parade after the staging area clears.
W2IK writes: I have listed a few tips which may make your field day setups more successful and more enjoyable.
1. When setting up antennas within close proximity: If you are using wire antennas such as dipoles, and they run parallel to each other there will be interference on your HF operating bands in the form of hash so arrange them at right angles to each other and at slightly different heights. If you use wire antennas such as dipoles, try to stay away from trap dipoles and use full length antennas instead. You may also wish to run your dipoles in different configurations such as have one as an “inverted V” and another as a sloper, etc. An antenna cut to the exact band you are using will decrease interference to and from other bands. Do not use compromise or “all band” antennas. On HF, stay away from vertical antennas as they receive too much man-made noise from sources such as generators, etc.
2. When operating within a tight area, as required by FD rules, it also pays to use “band pass filters” such as those manufactured by ICE. I have a full set of these HF filters and they work great. They are only about $ 38 per band and drastically reduce interference from your other operating posts. If your pocketbook can’t afford them, use coax “stub” filters. The lengths of these and how to build them can be found at: http://www.k1ttt.net/technote/k2trstub.html They are simple to make and easy to use. Both systems have been used by the major DXpeditions all over the world with great success. On HF frequencies make sure each operating station is properly grounded. Do NOT use a common ground for all your operating posts.
The Guadalupe Valley Amateur Radio Club will be again holding Field Day at WQ5C’s QTH on River Road. We’re planning on running a home station on emergency power, along with a temporary station, and possibly a “Get On The Air” station reserved for inactive hams. The highlight will be a cookout on Saturday evening. All area hams & their families are encouraged to attend.
The specifics:
Saturday, Jun 27:
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | |||||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
| 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
| 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |