San Antonio Hams

Just received this info courtesy of the San Antonio Radio Club… better late than never, I guess.

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Mr. Curtis Edward Swafford, born on July 24, 1941 in Riceville, Tennessee, passed away at age 77 on September 17, 2018 in San Antonio, Texas. He graduated from Calhoun High School and TN Wesleyan College. Curtis served in the Air Force and he devoted his career to working at Randolph Air Force Base – Civil Service. Curtis is survived by his son, Mark Morga and wife Tara Morga; daughter, Christine Garza and husband Mark Garza; sister, Faye Burger and husband Carey Burger; and grandchildren, AnneMarie Garza, Stephanie Garza, Karina Morga, and Gabriela Morga. Some of Curtis’ hobbies were ham radio – W5PKE and bowling league.

Normally that would be the end of his story, but his family graciously allowed members of SARC to attend an estate sale of his treasure trove of years of collecting amateur radio equipment. Apparently, Curtis was into a lot more hobbies than just ham radio and bowling. He was into graphics art and computers from what we could see.

His memory will live on as other club members use his equipment to talk around the world. By the huge stack of QCL cards sitting by his desk, he made many contacts around the world. (A QSL card is a written confirmation of either a two-way radio communication between two amateur radio stations)

Curtis is gone but not forgotten by members of San Antonio Radio Club. While many of us did not know him while he was alive, we bonded with him through purchasing his equipment. His legacy will live on though many SARC members using his equipment once more to talk around the world.

Via: San Antonio Radio Club newsletter editor

It is with extreme sadness, that I announce the passing of Bill WX5W Roney.

Bill was an Amateur Radio operator for over 56 years and for over 4 decades was a powerful voice and influence in San Antonio Amateur Radio, I was fortunate to meet Bill on the air early 2005, and in person a few months later. A strong friendship and bond developed and in 2006 Bill and I founded the Unusual Suspects Amateur Radio UNCLUB. This grew rapidly into one of more popular Groups, with our UNCLUB format, of just having fun and taking the politics, formal meetings, etc out of the mix…….We could just be hams being hams.

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It is with extreme sadness, that I announce the passing of Bill WX5W Roney.

Bill was an Amateur Radio operator for over 56 years and for over 4 decades was a powerful voice and influence in San Antonio Amateur Radio, I was fortunate to meet Bill on the air early 2005, and in person a few months later. A strong friendship and bond developed and in 2006 Bill and I founded the Unusual Suspects Amateur Radio UNCLUB. This grew rapidly into one of more popular Groups, with our UNCLUB format, of just having fun and taking the politics, formal meetings, etc out of the mix…….We could just be hams being hams.

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I had the fortunate experience to visit 4 of the 7 area Field Day sites on Saturday, June 22, 2019. The first three were visited during daylight hours, enabling me to fly one of my drones to get some unique perspectives. The 4th site was visited after dark and I was unable to fly while up in Boerne visiting KARS ham club.News media picked up SARC’s eventhttps://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/san-antonio/news/2019/06/23/san-antonio-participates-in-amateur-radio-nationwide-exercise?cid=share_clipI’ve uploaded 3 videos to YouTube and will share them below… Read the rest of this entry »

EXTRA! EXTRA! EXTRA! EXTRA!

Field Day 2019 is nigh upon us!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.

SARC will have a radio operations tent like pastyears with tables and chairs set up inside it. This tent will be provided with emergency power to operate the radios, com-puters, and lights in it.

Antennas will be set up mostly to the west side of the radio operations tent with coax cables run from the antennas back to the tent. Yes, there is space for more antennas.

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Field Day is a nationwide ARRL sponsored event on the fourth full weekend of June where many local ham clubs set up in a field environment to simulate the operation of amateur radios under emergency conditions.

While there is a contest aspect to Field Day, the real objective is to give members experience operating in an austere environment like those that may be faced in emergency situations.

It’s that time of year again to start up those generators, dust off those solar panels and charge up those batteries. Oh, and get your temporary antennas tested and move those radios from the boxes over to the field day location of your choice.

ARRL has a list of registered Field Day sites nationwide at this link, http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator , but some clubs choose not to get registered prior to the event weekend. Just put in your city / state in the search bar to find your nearest event location.

Note: Any contact information listed below was found published at the ARRL site locator map, or was provided to me for this purpose. None of the email links are live, so you will need to cut/paste in order to send that person an email about their event.

Don’t expect many of them to be checking their emails frequently during the weekend, they will likely be on the radio instead. Most will have a station monitoring 146.52 simplex to gain contacts in that manner.

Side Note: The San Antonio Radio Club (W5SC) will be holding a morning VE Test Session on Saturday, June 22nd, at the Great Northwest Public Library (Near Grissom Road and Timberwilde) beginning at 10am. While walk-ins are welcome, preregistration is requested via email at hamtest@gmail.com.

Pat AD5BR will be conducting the exams with her VE team. There is the usual $15/test attempt fee payable in cash and you will need the usual ID and proof of existing license (if upgrading). Please contact Pat AD5BR for more info.

This is the last chance in the San Antonio area to upgrade to General before the question pool changes on July 1st.

Area Clubs whom I know are conducting Field Day Events, include:

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Our next club meeting will be at 7:00 p. m. (1900) on Thursday, June 13, 2019, at. NEW LOCATION

Chester’s Hamburgers, 16609 San Pedro Avenue (US281), San Antonio, TX 7832.

There will not be a program as the focus of the meeting will be on
final coordination for Field Day 2019, which is on June 22-23rd.

Reminder: Centennial Special Operations Event

When: Saturday, 11 May 2019, 10:00am to 4:00pm, (GMT-05:00) America/Chicago

Where:102 Mabry Dr, San Antonio, TX 78226-2036, United States

View Event

Organizer: SARC

Description: This Saturday, 11 May, SARC members will be able to celebrate the club’s Centennial in true radio fashion. This will be the second of FOUR Special Event operations during 2019. The others will be held in August, and November.

We will be using the new station at San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology. The station is set up in an office space at the Museum, and is supplied with equipment from the Museum’s warehouse and some donations from SARC members.

The Special Event day will proceed in three parts:

1. Setup, done by a volunteer team headed by Joe Bruno W5AUQ, which will begin at 7:45 AM at the storage facility. The setup team will move the club’s tower, beam, and rotator to SAMSAT on the club’s trailer. They will then set up the antenna system, connect it, and test it for proper operation.

2. Operation, done by volunteer operators, will begin at 10 AM when the Museum opens.

For this Special Event, Tom O’Brien AB5XZ will coordinate the station operation. Logging will be done on a computer provided by Tom O’Brien, and will utilize logging software he provides. Operators will be given instruction on logging, antenna rotation, and transceiver operation.

SARC members may operate the station between 10 AM and 4 PM, when the Museum closes.

We will use special event call sign W5SC/100. Other amateurs may operate, but SARC members will have priority. Operation will be on the 20 meter band using SSB mode.

3. Teardown, done by a volunteer team headed by Joe Bruno W5AUQ, which will begin at 4 PM.

The teardown team will disconnect the antenna system, disassemble it, and prepare it for transport back to the storage facility.

Contact Joe Bruno to volunteer for the Setup or Teardown team (or both). jlbruno4433 @ gmail.com or 210.363.9500

Contact Tom O’Brien AB5XZ to sign up for operating time. There will be plenty of time/room for everybody. ab5xz @ arrl.net or 210.845.4966

Grady’s BBQ has apparently closed their location on San Pedro at Jackson Keller unexpectedly. So, the officers of the club had to scramble and find a new location to meet this coming Thursday.

Below is the information for the new location, at least for this month. We’ll post an update once a permanent location has been chosen.

May 9th 7PM
Coker United Methodist Church

231 E. North Loop Road,
San Antonio, Texas 78216

Wesley Building Room 703-04

Coker UMC is down the road from Grady’s (on Nakoma & 281) on North Loop Road. The Wesley building is just across from the Sanctuary. We must be done and gone by 9pm.

Map link…

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/29.548355,-98.5057766/Coker+United+Methodist+Church,+231+E.+North+loop+Road/@29.5520172,-98.5056974,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m9!4m8!1m1!4e1!1m5!1m1!1s0x865c6031fda197d3:0x1df4b3aaa4509323!2m2!1d-98.4913802!2d29.5554109

With Heavy Hearts we are sadden to report the passing of a fixture to the 147.380 repeater. W8SYD, Byron passed early Monday Morning. Survived by His Wife Christy and children. We will keep up to date once arrangements/memorial service has been made.

There will not be any public services.

SILENT KEY – W8SYD – Byron’s history

Started in Barberton, Summit County, Ohio with WN8SYD August 4, 1954 at the age of 12. My elmers were my Dad (electronics guy but nonham) and W8KAY who ran a KW on 144.300 CW for decades. I guess he was responsible for putting CW in my head forever. First rig was a Philmore NT-200 kit 6L6 (25w), an old S-40 with HBAVC, S-Meter & Q-multplier, 450 ft long wire at 50 ft., and a knife switch for T-R.

Mom was licensed WN8SYE at same time. Her station was upstairs NC-125, HB 2E26 A@30W AM and 8 half-waves in phase at 60 ft on 2M and a TBS-50D on 6m and a 4-el Yagi at 40ft.

1955 Built Johnson Ranger, HB 3-807s@2KV 811A mods, @ 500W AM. Sat for the General with the infamous FCC Engineer W8DX at one of the first Dayton Hamventions at the Dayton Biltmore Hotel in 1955. Received W8SYD May 5, 1955 and now attend Dayton regularly. Was active on AM & CW in the 50s, SSB & CW in the 60s (back in the days of phonepatches and traffic nets with real traffic). 1960 converted 807s/801s to 3-400Zs/810s to KW AM and 2KW SSB. In ’66 went into the USAF, travelled, had kids, etc. So was inactive for a while, but I’m back!! Rigs became SDRs, 3-500Zs and towers and beams.

Have had several enjoyable careers: Radar Intercept Controller (Man & SAGE) USAF Electronic Warfare, Electronics & Computer Programming, DoD contractor, then scrapped my techie hat and pay, to become a Clinical Social Worker, and the friendly neighborhood shrink.[g] Retire 2 years ago due to med problems. Now back to age 12 and on air 24/7.

2015 Equipment: SDR-1000, SDRTEC WonderRadio, FT-100D, TS-930S, NCX-3, Drake 4C Twins, NC-300, Ranger I, S-40, HW-16 and lots of other STUFF. Several 2m / 70cm rigs. LK-500ZC and SB-220 Amps. Homebrew 4-1000As in progress. Several HTs.

Antennas: A4S, 160m G5RV, 5el on 6m, 22el on 2, 5 el on 1.25, 27el on 70cm. 6m and 10m vert. 144/440 multi-el vert collinear. All are on a recently added 100′ Aluma crank up. old tower 40ft homebrew (1957) tiltover with 50 ft pushup out the top.) Also have 80m and 40m NVIS beams.

Software Defined Radio (SDR) is everything I everdreamed about as a kid (the penultimate rig). Computer software and SDR make everything possible. I acquired a WonderRadio (SDR-1000 clone) to develop some new ideas.