San Antonio Hams

iBCNU is an APRS GPS position reporting and text-messaging application for the Apple iPhone.

When position reporting is enabled, the application will periodically send out location of your iPhone using either 3G or WiFi network and iPhone’s built in GPS receiver.

The rate at which position reports are sent out is adjustable. Once the GPS information is in the APRS-IS system, it is shared between all users and you can track yourself or track your friends using this or one of the many APRS mapping sites.

When used as a text-messaging tool, iBCNU will let you send and receive messages using the APRS-IS system. You can send short (approximately 512 character) messages to your ham friends for free.

This item is apparently available, or will be availble soon,  for sale thru the Apple Itunes Store for $1.99.     

I did a search at store.apple.com for “iBCNU” (I be seeing you?), “APRS”, “Amatuer Radio” and didn’t find it listed as active.   Reading the developer’s log revealed that he ha been experiencing some “technical difficulties” meeting Apple’s “human interface standards” and other “issues” which have delayed the release of an updated version to the initial release, or any of us from downloading it.   (Note: I don’t have an iPhone anyway. – Lee)

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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….

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I am looking for an electronics club in San Antonio.    I can’t seem to find one on the net… been looking and looking. I am interested in fixing little gadgets with circuit boards and the like, if anyone can help me or direct me to aid my quest I would appreciate it. Thank you!

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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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.”

Feeled Dazers,
by Jeff Schmidt, N5MNW – Austin Reporter

2009’s Field Day proved to be challenging with extreme heat, poor band conditions and ever-present Murphy’s Law. Many thanks to the tireless dedication of Stu K5KVH, the setup/teardown crew and all the operating & logistical volunteers who made this a memorable event.

Nearby power hardware was causing extreme 10-over-9 buzz noise near the site. It abated somewhat during the weekend but was causing us not to hear weaker stations. 20m had lots of fast fading, 15m was up & down, mostly down. We had what sounded like very sporadic E skip for 15, 10 & 6m openings. 10m was open on Sat AM then closed for all but a few minutes on Sunday and 6m opened briefly several times.

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I’m combining some photos from various hams in this posting.  These include a few more from myself (Lee N5NTG), Gary (K5GST) and Jorge (WP4KTF).

And as usual, please help us in identifying the hams in each photo.  If we’ve failed to identify a person properly or not at all, please post a comment letting us know which photo to update and we’ll get it taken care of.

I’ve labeled the photos according to their owner…

Enjoy!

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