San Antonio Hams

The Alamo Area Radio Organization is pleased to welcome Juan Hernandez of Yaesu America KG6HKA Technical Support Specialist as our guest speaker for the April membership meeting.  The date and location has been changed to accommodate both the speaker and the venue capacity.

The April meeting has been changed to the first Wednesday of April, April 6th at 6:30pm.  Please come early to eat before the meeting starts.

This a special event with limited seating (120 seats) and will be held at a Blanco BBQ on 13259 Blanco Road, San Antonio, TX and starts at 630 pm.

AA5RO will return back to Mamacita’s Mexican Restaurant next month, on the regular 2nd Wednesday at 7pm.

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,

For everyone that I have not had a chance to talk to this year so far, I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a very safe and happy New Year and that the new year brings good things for everyone.

Four Years Ago…

The Unclub put up our first repeater January 2012 at the San Antonio American Red Cross on 443.025 with a PL tone of 82.5, taking the knowledge we had gained over the years developing premier VHF/UHF Simplex stations to operate DX and applying it to our repeater, we developed a repeater that had impressive range on 70cm opening a communication link covering most of Bexar County and fantastic coverage East well past Seguin out IH 10 and strong coverage on 37 heading towards Corpus Christi.

We were selected to be part of the Yaesu Fusion Beta Team and helped develop and debug this new Digital Format, enjoying over a year advance experience with Fusion Radio’s and Repeaters before it was released to the general public.

Less Than Two Years Ago…

November of 2014 the plan was formed to built a Regional Fusion Repeater Network supporting Analog and Digital Communications covering Austin, Texas Hill Country {Wimberly, Marble Falls, Boerne, Kerrville, Pipe Creek, Bandera, Tarply, Hondo, Dilley, Pleasanton, Floresville, Seguin, New Braunfels} allowing you to travel through out the region and carry on a continuous conversation.

One Year Ago…

In January 2015, I gained approval and a 50 year Lease at $1 per month} for a commercial communication site that provided us with a fantastic location and in March of 2015 the 147.120 Repeater came on the air, providing fantastic coverage through out Bexar County, up to Pipe Creek/Lake View, out to New Braunfels and well south of Bexar County and out towards Hondo.

In August 2015, The Hamster Weak Signal Group became an official affiliated club with the ARRL, despite being an “Unclub”. This helped us obtain more affordable liability insurance that was required  by some commercial tower sites.

Fast Forward To January 2016…

I am happy to announce that our plans for the repeater linking Bandera, Tarpley, Medina, Kerrville, etc., is now moving forward at a fast pace……We are just days away from working out the agreement on the locations and hope to have all of those detailed finalized by the end of this week or first part of next week.

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The San Antonio Radio Fiesta is scheduled for Saturday, January 9, 2016 at the Schertz Civic Center, 1400 Schertz Pkwy, Schertz, Texas.

As everyone knows the weather was not in our favor last year, but we had a good turnout considering.

The Schertz Civic Center offers more floor space and tables in the exhibit hall. We will have a meeting area that will seat approximately 180 people, plus a meeting area for VE testing. With four programs scheduled plus the winter meeting of the Texas VHF Society (hopefully), we believe our attendance will increase.

– Rowena Archer, KF5JCZ, Event Chairman

SAN ANTONIO
RADIO CLUB

The Amateur Radio Fiesta will be Saturday, January 9, 2016.

• HOURS: 8:00 am to 2:00 pm on Saturday.
• LOCATION: Schertz Civic Center – 1400 Schertz Pkwy, Schertz, TX
• TALK IN FREQUENCY: 146.940 (-, 179.9)
• Amateur Radio Fiesta set up:
  • Friday Night – 4 to 9 pm
  • Saturday – Set up starting at 6:30 am with the doors opening at 8 am.
• Admission Ticket: $10 at the door
• Dealer Tables: $14 at the door, if available
• Flea Market Tables: $10 at the door, if available
• Tailgate Spaces: 1 free with purchase of an admission ticket to hall, (extra tailgate space) $5 each
• Extra Prize Tickets: $1 each or 12 for $10

Also, If you want to join, or renew your membership, with the San Antonio Radio Club, you can save $3 by paying at the Radio Fiesta. Look for the SARC table near the front entrance. Dues: $12 for entire family by Jan 9 ($15 after). Sign up every ham in your family for one low price! Cheapest club rates in town (compared with those groups who charge annual dues)!

For additional information on our great programs and schedule of events, please view our PDF Flyer at http://w5sc.org/2016%20webpage%20flyer%20B.pdf.

It was brought to my attention that a couple of local hams have been making up lies about a third ham, claiming that this 3rd ham operator was in trouble with the FCC over his operating procedures and sloppy repeater operations (repeaters not in compliance).

They even tried to get the American Red Cross and other repeater locations to ban Greg from those sites, and almost persuaded another repeater trustee to back out of a linked repeater (Yaseau Fusion) project.

So I reached out to the ham being accused of these behaviors or actions and asked for his side of the issue.

Greg Lewis, N5XO, has supplied me with copies of  two letters from the FCC disputing the claims of these other operators, plus three MP3 recordings from over the air, showing proof that these two hams have indeed been bad mouthing him and making unsubstantiated accusations over the air.

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The 2015 Veterans Day parade will be held in Universal City on this Saturday, November 7th. Ham radio operators are needed to assist the Universal City Police Department with crowd and traffic control (mostly just moving the pre positioned barricades into place when the police order Pat Booker Road to be shut down when the parade is about to start).

We’ll be using a 2 meter frequency, HT recommended, but there will also be some commercially licensed HT radios available for those who don’t have one, or are not a licensed ham yet. Reflective vests recommended. Might need rain gear, depending on the forecasts.

We’ll meet at the UCPD HQ, located in city hall on Universal City Blvd by 9am. Free donuts, coffee and juice will be provided. Briefing starts at 9am, with the volunteers moving to their assignments along Pat Booker Rd by 10am.

Parade route runs south on Pat Booker towards Randolph AFB, turning either left or right (varies each year) on Byrd.

Many of us gather afterwards at a Mexican restaurant for lunch (not free, sorry) located near Universal City Blvd, next to a motorcycle shop.

Coordination by Hill Country REACT Team, contact Lee Besing, N5NTG, at (210-771-7075) or info@sanantoniohams.org

The 2015 communications team, for the running of the Cactus Rose 100, was supported on-air for 31 hours by five members of Hill Country REACT and one member of the Chaparral Amateur Radio Club.

CR100 has been a event on the public event schedule for 5 years now, with Hill Country REACT as the lead with participation from numerous individuals and organizations.  Our involvement with Tejas Trails is going on about 11 years, between the Bandera 100K and Cactus Rose 100.

Both events are held on the Hill Country State Natural Area in Bandera County Texas. Continued support and dedication from members of Hill Country REACT, Highland Lakes ARC, Chaparral ARC, Hill Country ARC and numerous individuals of various affiliations continue to make these events a communications success which bring awareness and appreciation to the Amateur Radio community.

 Hill Country State Natural Area is a 5,400 acre facility with over 34 miles of equestrian, hiking, biking and running trails from flat and smooth to 45 degree rocky climbs.

The environment and terrain at HCSNA creates numerous challenges for communications. Cell phone coverage is nearly non-existent with the average smart phone, the nearest permanent ham repeater is over 20 miles away and behind a range, and simplex vhf/uhf communications can be finicky.

At most events we deploy a portable repeater onsite, but due to the impending weather forecast the decision was made to work strictly simplex and not attempt this to expedite demobilization. At the remote aid stations, HT’s were supported by mobile units positioned nearby.

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HAM RADIO CLASS AND EXAM

The Chaparral Amateur Radio Club is offering a technician-level license class September 19 and 26 (2015) at the office of Guadalupe County Emergency Management Office, 415 East Donegan Street in Seguin. It will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. A license exam will be given before the end of class on September 26th.

This is an intense two-day course that covers all of the material necessary to pass the exam to obtain a Federal Communications Commission Amateur Radio Technician class license.

Participants will need a “Technician Class Manual” (2014-2018) by Gordon West, available from www.w5yi.org/catalog for $21.95.

There is no Morse code requirement for this license.

The technician class license is the entry-level license of choice for most new ham radio operators.

The license gives access to all amateur radio frequencies above 30 megahertz, allowing these licensees the ability to communicate locally and most often within North America. It also allows for some limited privileges on the HF (also called “short wave”) bands used for international communications.

For more information, contact Steve Leibovitz at sandpiper986@yahoo.com or 830.660.9514, or Max Brandenberger at maxb@kd5sfk.com or 512.470.5431.

Hill Country REACT Team 4804 will be holding their monthly  meeting on Tuesday,  22 September 2015 @ 1900 hrs.  The meeting is held at Picadillo’s  Restaurant in Bulverde.

Anyone interested in purchasing service and/or emergency communications is invited to attend.   Our team is very diverse and active with many benefit and community service activities in the region that require additional communication  via radio.

Looking forward to seeing some new faces.

Thank You,

Louis Upton – Hill Country REACT President