San Antonio Hams

I was updating some of my wiring harness for my ham radio emergency go-kit, and needed to unsolder some wires from a LED switch to that I could try to reuse it.  I succeeded in getting the older wires removed and cleaned the solder off the terminals so that I could later reattach the connectors of my choice.

But something happened (this was 3am in the morning) and the soldering pencil (all 12 watts of it) decided to roll off the table and land on the inside of my left forearm.  

Ouch!   Those things are hot enough to melt solder, and hot enough to start burning their way thru my skin, especially the more tender skin on the inside of my arm rather than the weather beaten outer side. 🙂

Kids, don’t try this without adult supervision, and adults, don’t try it without adult supervision. 

I should have used my soldering station to put the pencil in while hot, but that was outside in my van from when we were installing the antenna and power lines for the radio, and (did I mention it was 3am?) so I didn’t feel like going out side to fetch it back inside just for a quicky task. 

Shame on me for taking short cuts and using my spare soldering pencil without taking proper precautions to ensure it didn’t get knocked off and start a fire or other hazard (like hitting my arm).

Six days later (8/5), and burn mark still very noticeable.  Not hurting as much, still keeping neosporin applied, plus those spray on bandages instead of tape on bandages.  Here’s a current photo.

I may have mentioned to some of you that I had switched 100% over to using Anderson Power Pole connectors a few years back. But unless you wanted to shell out some big $$ to buy those power blocks from West Mountain Radio to the tune of $55-$100+ each, you had to build your own power block splitters.

Local Ham Operator, Grumpy, WF5Y, has a home-brew flat panel with 8 Anderson Power Pole connectors, each with their own fuse, similar to the WMR version, and he was asking $50 each at the Austin Summerfest. 

But after visiting with the DC Power folks from Beaverton, Oregon, www.dcpwr.com, during the Plano Hamcom last June, I went to Wes Allen K7WWG’s web site to see what he had available.  I found an affordable solution in the form of a Red-Dee-2 8 port connector block (Model PS-8) that would allow me to feed power to 7 other devices.  The price?  $28 plus shipping.  

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Information about the Bexar Operators Group, including what they have done and their planned events, can now be found at their new site: Bexar Operators Group – Home  

This club is an active amateur radio group and not a social club. Up coming events include participation in this year’s JOTA event which will focus on operating “green” with solar panels and wind turbines.

We also sponsor the annual “Jump Team Boot Camp”. All types of antenna testing and field operations are done in order to make members better operators in both contests and during emergency conditions.

This webpage also includes two links which will get you to W2IK’s old AOL webpages (45 of them) that were thought lost. Between the two you should find them all!

For further info, contact us through our new web page or at: W2IK@arrl.net

Our regular readers will remember a posting we made earlier (June 12, 2009) about an Emergency Go-Kit Idea that involved some minor surgery to a Stanley Toolbox with wheels, by adding a couple of sealed lead acid batteries in the bottom compartment, a 12 volt 30 amp Pyramid power supply, a 300 watt DC to AC power converter, a home-brew battery charging circuit, etc.

I’ve made some more progress on this project, adding an external on/off  switch to control the exhaust / cooling fan on the side of the toolbox, and adding an external AC power plug on the other side to make it more convenient to plug in up to two AC devices to the emergency go-kit toolbox.   Of course, I suppose you could use a power strip to plug in more, but the circuit is limited to 15 amps and the converter will only handle 300 watts.  I’ve labeled the exterior plug warning of the limitations, and also have a surge reset button mounted nearby.

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The Bexar Operators Group has closed the availability of our late October, three  day “Jump Team Boot Camp” session as we have reached both our limits of registered applicants and  filled a short standby list.

I did turn away a few people, such as a father and son team from the mid-west who wanted to “audit” (just watch) the event. This boot camp is only for the “doer” and all participants are expected to do everything so they can be prepared for any real emergency event.

Some slots were filled by hams from North Texas, Army MARS and hams from the mid-west. There were no hams from South Texas who wanted to attend. I may have to make some minor adjustments to the timing of the event in order to accommodate people coming in from out of state and so the personnel teaching survival skills can be available. 

I probably will have a few of the special 200+ page session guides available after the event, replete with any additions made during the event, for sale to others.

Bob  W2IK – NNN0KSI – NNN0GBY2  STX NAVMC MARS Ecom

Here’s a photo taken of me on Sunday, July 12th, about 3 hours before my van held an impromptu BBQ Cook-off in the middle of the road.

Little did I know what was about to happen, but I sure looked satisfied at the time of this photo, at least with the progress I was making with my emergency go-kit in a rolling tool box.

By the way, the story posted earlier about W21IK and his antenna test at Bullis County Park?   This photo was taken by W2IK during that event, because he said it wasn’t fair that I got to take all the photos and hide behind the camera. 🙂

I started out with a plain heavy duty Stanley brand toolbox w/ wheels available from Wal-mart for about $20. 

This toolbox was selected because the wheels were mounted on a single piece steel rod shaft that ran the full width, from wheel to wheel.  In other words, the wheels weren’t simply snapped onto the sides like some of the other cheaper models I had looked at elsewhere.  Also, I had looked at some two-piece toolboxes that stacked, but they ran the risk of having the two pieces come apart at the wrong time while loading or unloading from your vehicle, or rolling to where ever you needed the kit to be.  I just liked the idea of a one-piece double stacked toolbox with strong wheels that were unlikely to come off at the wrong time.

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Most of you missed tonight’s ARES meeting that was held in a conference room inside the secure City’s EOC building over in Brooks City Base on the SE side of San Antonio. 

About 2 dozen hams attended to do a debriefing regarding Field Day 2009 (i.e. discuss what went right, what went wrong, and how to make next year’s event even better.)   A common request was to “fix the outdoor A/C or move the event to October.”  In other words, it was hot out there that weekend.   We also discussed possible on-the-air training net topics to be covered over the upcoming 60 days during the Tuesday night training nets.

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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

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.

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Shane NS5D has announced that the Debriefing (Wrap-up) meeting for this year’s Field Day effort will be on the agenda during the Tuesday, July 7th, meeting of the Bexar County ARES group at the San Antonio EOC (located inside Brooks City Base on the SE side of San Antonio). Meeting starts at 6:45pm.   ARES meetings are typically open to any interested ham radio operator to attend.

However having said all that, I would suggest that if you were interested in attending, and you aren’t one of the regular attendees, that you please contact Shane for more details since admission into this area is generally subject to slightly higher security than when ARES meets at the Red Cross, plus it tends to be a bit confusing for the first time visitor. 

Please be thinking about your Field Day experiences and be prepared to stand up and talk about them at our next ARES meeting on Tuesday, July 7th at 6:45pm at the EOC

Especially focus on what you will do differently next time, whether it be Field Day or a deployment to the field. Folks that participated in other Field Day events besides Bexar County’s are also invited to share their lessons learned.

Regards,
Shane NS5D