San Antonio Hams

Updated at 1230 hours on 8/25/2017

Bexar County is currently under a Flash Flood Watch and Tropical Storm Warning. Hurricane Harvey has been upgraded to Category 2 and still expected to become a Category 3, making landfall between Corpus Christi and Port O’Connor this evening. A life-threatening and catastrophic heavy rainfall event is expected east of I-35 and I-37. Small shifts in the forecast track of Harvey, and where it stalls this weekend, could result in very large differences in rainfall totals.

Evacuations
200 Gembler Road is the reception center for every evacuee, regardless of their mode of transportation.

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Ham radio operators in Texas, mostly in the affected area and out towards San Antonio and Austin where shelters might be set up, or charging their batteries for their handheld radios and getting their radio gear ready for possible deployment.

In the San Antonio area, the Bexar County ARES group will be coordinating all ham communication deployments at the city counry emergency operations center and the public shelters likely to be set up by the city of San Antonio and the American Red Cross. No shelters were open as of the time I wrote this post. (Aug 24, 2017 at 2100 hours)

Ruth Lewis is the counry EOC for the ham operations and will be working closely with the local city, county, and state officials.

Listen to the 147.18 repeater for manpower updates and the 146.94 repeater for local Skywarn operations as the storm hits town on Saturday.

If the mega shelters are opened in San Antonio, it will probably be for a few days through early next week until they can safely return back to the coast in the flooded areas.

The highways coming from the coast, especially Highway IH-37 from Corpus Christi, is going to have extremely heavy traffic.

I have not yet heard of the state activating the hurricane plan which would turn the various highways into a one-way direction coming from the coast up to San Antonio.

I will post more information as it becomes available to us.

There is no need to self deploy yourself at this time. We need to make sure there’s a place for you to help the cause, rather than causing the problem.

Clifford James Buck passed away on June 19, 2017. Born in Kirksville Missouri, he is survived by his wife, Jill, his son, Jamie Buck and his wife, Stepsons Edward, Lee and Robert Hocking and their families, his Aunt, Betty Mudd, and his sister, Dorotha Drittler and her family.

A Marine Vietnam vet who served two tours, he was proud of his 10 years of service. He was active in amateur radio as W5CJB which will now be a Silent Key.

No service is planned. Instead of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to either the Helotes Humane Society, at 10675 Shaenfield Rd, San Antonio, TX 78254, the Poquita Paws Rescue, at 1248 Austin Hwy. #106 PMB 324 San Antonio, TX 78209 or a charity of their own choosing in his name.

Published in Express-News on June 25, 2017

[Editor Notes: Jim and his wife were / are members of at least 2 ham clubs in the area, Alamo Area Radio Organization (AARO) and Medina County Amateur Radio Corporation (MCARC). Jim was well liked and will be missed. – Lee N5NTG]

This past weekend was the ARRL VHF/UHF Contest, and I normally dive into this contest with maximum effort, but with long time friends in town that we have not seen in 6 or 7 years and spending time with them all day Saturday, that left only Sunday and I need to do a quick trip to pick up some Antennas just south of Houston.

So Ruth and I thought it would be fun to operate Sunday as a Rover, so with her logging, and me operating we hopped into the truck and headed to Alvin Texas which is 186 miles away as the crow flies.

With the radio dialed in on 144.200 USB, we pulled out of the house.

Announced we were in the contest and roving.

We immediately worked KB2WDM in Schertz, followed by K5QE in Hemphill, TX. Marshal is 336 miles from our first contact location. With a single omni directional loop antenna built by Tom K5VH and 120 watts mobile we worked K5QE in EM31 and quickly knocked out additional contacts around the region.

On the Trip we made 17 contacts, working several stations in every grid on our drive {EL-09, EL-19, EL-29}.

Take Horizontal polarization with it’s reduced noise, good take off angle and Single Side Band with the ability to hear and pull intelligence out of a weaker signal and you get one of the reasons you can communicate at much greater ranges then possible with FM, and you will understand the fun and the thrill of what you can accomplish with VHF/UHF Weak Signal.
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2ND Annual HAMSTER Lunch and Learn Event

JULY 1ST 2017

Welcome to the HAMster Weak Signal Group Lunch and Learn. The purpose of this event is to bring a large group of HAMs together for some education and fun. We want to introduce you not only to the HAMster Group, but also to VHF/UHF Dxing. If you have never experienced the trhill of working stations on 2 metersa nd up 500, 1000 or even 1,500 miles, with daily contacts in the 100 to 150 mile range, then come join us.

Join us for Hot Dogs, Chips, Soda and VE Session with VHF/UHF training classes. Special Weak Signal Training by FLEX Radio, and the HAMster Group.

Flex Radio will be on hand to demonstrate the new products and advantages for VHF/UHF Weak Signal/EME/Meteor Scatter.

License Testing available for new hams or upgrades to your license will be held at 2pm. $15 per test taker. Please contact Pat AD5BR at HAMTEST@GMAIL.COM for details and to RSVP for the test session (not same address as used to register for the Lunch and Learn).

Raffle and Swap Meet
RAFFLE TICKETS $5 EACH OR 5 FOR $20

1ST PLACE: YAESU FUSION RADIO
2ND PLACE: K5VH 2 METER SSB OMNI ANTENNA
3RD PLACE PRIZES AND DOOR PRIZES WILL BE AWARDED AS WELL

TRAINING AND LUNCH IS FREE

Saturday July 1st 2017
8:am Kick-Off to 3:Pm

Event to be held at the American Red Cross, 3642 E. Houston St, San Antonio, Tx. (Please use the Houston St side entrance to enter the building.)

RSVP to: N5xo@144200.net
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The South Texas DX and Contest club will be holding a Field Day Operation at their club station in Bandera, TX.

Location: Bandera, TX (contact info below)
Time: June 24th 1pm CDT – 9am CDT June 25th

The STXDXCC will be running a multi-transmitter “D” (Home Station) operation with a focus on Side Band and CW. Operators of any license class are welcome.

For details contact Marty Meyers W5MRM at info@w5rta.net or call or text 210-602-0371.

Greetings to all HCARC members and interested friends,

Field Day is almost here. The annual emergency preparedness exercise
starts this Saturday at 1:00PM local time and continues to Sunday at
1:00PM local time.

The objective is to contact as many stations during the field day period of 24 hours. The HCARC will be operating at the Our Lady of the Hills athletic complex just off Highway 27 and west of the Kerrville airport on Peterson Farm Road where there is a blinking yellow light.

All club members and their friends are invited to attend. There will be an evening supper of chicken fajitas with the usual condiments starting at 6:00PM.

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Field Day 2017 is nigh upon us! June 24-25th. We will be operating for the full 24 hours, 1300 hours Saturday thru 1300 hours on Sunday. Members will be arriving earlier, around 0930 hours, to do some permitted preliminary setup and arrange for logistics.

All SARC members are encouraged to participate in Field Day. Yes, you can bring all of your own equipment, but you don’t have to bring all of your equipment or even any equipment.

We welcome visitors of any type. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t a club member or a non ham operator. Everybody is welcomed.

Our location will be at Shavano Park’s City Hall, outside in the parking lot.   The address is 900 SaddleTree Ct, Shavano Park, just off of NW Military Drive, north of De Zavala Rd, and inside Loop 1604.

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TECHNICIAN HAM LICENSE COURSE

Where: Christus Santa Rosa Medical Center Hospital
Kingman Room (Right from the information desk, at the end of the hall)
2827 Babcock Rd
San Antonio, TX 78229

When: Saturdays May 27 and June 3, 2017
9 AM to 5 PM

Attendees should attend both sessions since different material will be covered each day.

The Technician License Exam will be given Saturday, June 3 at 3 PM.
Cost: $15 for license exam

Study material: 2014 – 2018 Technician Class Manual by Gordon West
Available at w5yi.org or 1-800-669-9594. Cost about $23.

For additional information: Contact Bob Rodriguez K5AUW at 210-887-6618
or bobrod@flash.net

The 2-day San Antonio to San Marcos to Austin Tour de Cure bike ride, previously scheduled for the month of May, has been cancelled. The ride in Corpus Christi, previously scheduled for April, has also been cancelled.

I participated in a conference call with National American Diabetes Association officials earlier this week and this is what I have learned.

All ham operators and other volunteers who had planned to work the TdC event in May will now get a free weekend off.

The National American Diabetes Association has reorganized and restructured their offices across the country in an attempt to lower their financial administrative overhead. As part of that process, they laid off all of the ADA employees in the Austin and San Antonio offices, except for 1 or 2 persons.

They (Regional ADA office out of Denver) were discussing holding a possible one day event, combined for both Austin and the San Antonio markets, perhaps in the San Marcos area later this fall. No date or location has been announced as of today. The online info at the American Diabetes Association website for this event had not been updated as of the date of this post.

As I find out more information, I will be sure to pass it on to those interested and post it also here at www.SanAntoniohams.Org/blog

If you know of a rider who has already pre-registered for the ride, and has been fundraising for the ride, please tell them that they will need to contact the ADA office to find out the status of their registration and/or fundraising status.

The San Antonio ADA office number is 210-829-1765.

Lee Besing, N5NTG
FormerTdC co-chair for Ham & SAG Communications