San Antonio Hams

When: June 12th and 13th
Where: Hill Country State Natural Area – Bandera, TX
What: ACTHA (American Competitive Trail Horse Association) Event – a not-for-profit event.

Details: We need 8 -10 operators each day.

Saturday, June 12th – event will run from 0900 to 1300hrs – lunch at 1400hrs – Breakfast for volunteers will be provided 0730. Proceeds benefit the AQHBA youth scholarship Program.

Sunday, June 13th – event runs from 1400hrs to 1700hrs – Breakfast at 0730, lunch at 1200hrs – The late start time is due to a nationwide event that is attempting to break a Guiness Book of World Records title. Proceeds from Sundays event benefit ACTHA Horse Rescue Operations.

ACTHA events judge the ability of a horse and rider to negotiate natural obstacles, handle standard task, and the overall condition of the horse. Although rare accidents and injuries do occur.

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On Wednesday, April 14, 2010, AARO’s own Luke Ham (KF5CSK) achieved the Boy Scouts of America highest rank, Eagle Scout. 

Shown with Luke are his proud parents, David (KF5BGT and also an Eagle Scout) and Lisa Ham.   Click on photo for larger view.

Just spoke with Wade W5ERX during the REACT Meeting and learned he had taken down the 444.450 repeater which is located near Canyon Lake due to mechanical problems with the crystal.  Wade sent the crystal off to be rebuilt / repaired / replaced.    As soon as he receives the new part, he’ll get the repeater back on the air.  He anticipates this may take until the end of May, unless they get the crystal turned around sooner.

In the meantime, the GVARC 147.000 repeater in New Braunfels still has great coverage, and was recently repaired to fix a reported problem.  Chances are, we’ll be running the Tour de Cure event on May 22nd and 23rd using the GVARC 147.000 repeater as we did last year.

During tonight’s Bexar County ARES  Training Net,  Lothar briefly mentioned the garage door problems those of us living near the intersection of 151 and Potranco Road (San Antonio, TX) are having.    As Lothar correctly stated, the issue is a conflict between a new radio communications tower put up at the NSA facility being built on Military Drive and garage door openers in the vicinity.

The NSA tower works on the LMR 390 Mhz frequency, which is shared with older garage door openers, including, as it turns out, my own. As NSA has stated in public, they believe they have the legal basis for operating on this frequency, and do not intend to stop operating on this frequency.   So, for those of us with garage door openers operating at that frequency, it means that your remote may not open your garage door until you are very close to it. In my case, I actually had to park in my driveway, get out of my car, and activate the remote standing two feet from the garage door. A bit of an inconvenience.

The Genie GIRUD-1T Universal Dual Frequency Conversion Kit alleviates frequency issues from the recently implemented Land Mobile Radio (LMR) communications system. The LMR system is used by military bases across the U.S. and was implemented as part of the nation’s Homeland Security efforts.

Most newer garage door openers operate on the 315 Mhz frequency to avoid this conflict. So if you are having these issues and would like some resolution, you can do one of two things: 1.) Purchase a new garage door opener that operates at that frequency, or 2.) Install a converter which will allow your existing garage door opener to operate on the new frequency.

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During the March 12-13th 2010 REACT International Annual Board Meeting, we tried something new and radical. 

Take a cheap webcam with built in microphone, extend the cables another 15′ so you can stick the camera off in the corner someplace, and now you have the next best thing to being that spider on the wall, not only listening in to the meeting, but watching it live as well.    

I used my CLEAR Wimax modem for part of the meeting, but changed over to the Drury Inn’s wi-fi because they had a slightly faster upload speed.  The 2 day annual board meeting was held in Irving Texas (DFW Airport area) at the Drury Inn.

Watch the meeting (recorded) at http://ustream.tv/reactsecretary for all 16 hours if you need help sleeping. 🙂 

These videos were recorded live, and have not been edited.

If you haven’t been to ARRL’s website lately, you don’t know about it’s new look and feel.  They have spent some serious effort (read that as paid a bunch of money to somebody other than me)  to build a site that lets visitors sign up for a free trial before joining ARRL.

http://www.arrl.org is the direct  link.

Your membership dollars at work… 

We’ve heard of a few glitches in their system, but that is to be expected on any new major redesign like what was involved here.   

As a webmaster who manages over 80 website / domain names, and has been designing webites since 1995, we say to ARRL “Job well done!”.

Of course if they had let me help… 🙂

Chaparral Amateur Radio Club a.k.a. Guadalupe County ARES will be holding a License Test session on the evening of May 11th, after our normally scheduled meeting.

Currently we are planning to have available tests for Technician and General. If you would like to test for Extra, please notify Ray Mueller – AE5HN at raym701 at yahoo dot com, so we can plan accordingly. The session will start a 19:00 hrs (7:00 p.m.)

The address is 415 E. Donegan – Seguin, TX 78155
Chaparral ARC holds its monthly meeting on the 2nd Tuesday each month at 18:00hrs! All licenced Amateur Radio Operators and those interested in becoming one are invited to attend!

Time to take a look at the events calendar once again.  Did you know we post a regular calendar of events on this site, and let other hams post club events directly?  If your club has an event they want other Hams to know about, or want help with, post it here for free.  Contact the webmaster, Lee N5NTG, to get a userID upgraded to let you do this.

2010 Events Happening Soon!

• April 17-18th – BPMS150 – Houston – Austin Bicycle event, 2 days.  Contact Milton N5HMJ for details.  Almost to late for new volunteers, but hey, give it a try!
• April 16th – Belton Ham Expo -Contact www.tarc.org
• April 16-17th – Texas State Ladies Championship Chili Cook-off – Starke Park, Seguin, TX. Help out Friday evening, Saturday daytime.  Easy work.  Contact Louis K1STX
• April 18th – Fiesta 100 Bicycle event, Contact Gordon K5SUZ
• April 24th – Canyon Lake Chamber of Commerce BBQ – Contact Charlie KC5NKK
• May 1st – 5K Run @ Bulverde Senior Citizens Ctr – Contact Wade W5ERX
• May 1st – Special Olympics Spring Games – Harlendale Stadium – Contact Lee N5NTG
• May 22-23rd – Tour de Cure Bicycle event, San Antonio to Austin, 2 days.  – Contact Lee N5NTG
• June 11-12th – Plano HamCom
• June 12th – Texas Water Safari 
• June 26-27th – Field Day Weekend – various locations
• July 4th – Fourth of July Parade – Startzville – Contact Wade W5ERX

The Office for Communication (Ofcom) today announced plans to progress with the UK’s digital switchover by pushing for all UK amateur radio repeaters to switch to digital by the end of 2011. The switch is being driven on by the increased demand for radio frequencies for use during the 2012 London Olympics.

While the announcement this morning came as a shock to many of the UK’s amateur radio users it was welcomed by the Radio Society of Great Britian (RSGB). A spokesperson for the society commented “Amateur radio is a thriving hobby in the UK and as such it embraces technological advances which promote the hobby”. It is understood that the RSGB are to work closely with radio manufactures to ensure that the switch over can be achieved in such a way to ensure minimal disruption to its membership. A spokesperson for Icom (UK), manufactures of digital radios in the UK stated “Digital radio technology has been available to radio amateurs across the globe for several years and Icom are proud to have lead the way with their D-STAR radio system.”

This report came to us from the Royal Society of Great Britain, which has since retracted the story after learning it was an April 1st joke.