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Monthly Summary for October 2009
News last updated: Thu, November 19, 2009 at 10:01 AM ET
>>Congratulations to our youngest South Texas Section Public Information Officer, Joseph Gadus III, KE5BVQ, on his successful completion of the ARRL Public Information Officer Training Course PR-101. Joseph completed the course in less than four hours. Joseph is seventeen years old and has been licensed for over five years. Here are just a few of Joseph's accomplishments:
The Harris County Judge declared a day in his honor, due to his willingness to volunteer during Hurricane Katrina relief in 2005. See the news article here: http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2005/12/15/1/
His photo also appeared in QST last year when he was working a point of distribution (POD) during Hurricane Ike relief. You will also see Joseph manning the ARRL booths at ARRL events. Plus, he does most of the AIRMAIL demonstrations, and is a super Net Control Operator.
Again, congratulations to Joseph for his dedication to Amateur Radio.
>>Gary Tangrady, K5GST, reports from the Hill Country on an annual tradition in the Canyon Lake area. All the area merchants and non-profit organizations set up booths and tables along FM 2673 that runs through the main stretch of Sattler, Texas (just east of Canyon Lake, west of New Braunfels, TX). This stretch has grown over the years from the north side of town down past River Road, to where it now reaches a total of about 2.5 miles in length. Comal County Sheriff Deputies in their patrol cars, supplemented by local constables, provided some safety issues at designated crossing points to allow participants to cross the busy road, especially after dark.
The event is sponsored by the Canyon Lake Chamber of Commerce. Hill Country REACT has been participating in this annual event for at least 15 year, first as Comal County REACT and now as Hill Country REACT. The Chamber in recent years, has been providing REACT with the candy to distribute, and this year we passed out nearly 80 pounds in about 2 hours.
Here is a video taken during this 2 hour event. http://sanantoniohams.org/blog/?p=3522
And, here is the link to "The Forgotten Video" http://sanantoniohams.org/blog/?p=3532
>>Gary Tangrady, K5GST, also reports that on the weekend of October 3 & 4 the San Antonio hams worked a big bike ride as they do every year called the MS 150 Ride to the River, a two day 150 mile bike ride where we had 64 or more amateurs working. Riders numbered nearly 2500.
On October 31 and November 1, Amateurs from San Antonio, and New Braunfels worked a bike race called the Tour de Gruene in Geuene, TX.
On November 7, the Hill Country REACT Team #4084, together with the local area ARES groups and clubs, staged an exercise where we were at various places in the area working on a scenario of a mass evacuation of the South Texas Coast. The San Antonio Express News, that came out to visit one of the sites.
The weekend of November 14, three events took place. The REACT Group in conjunction with members of various clubs in San Antonio worked the Veteran's Day Parade in Universal City. Also, another group put on a merit badge class for the Boy Scouts. And on Sunday, November15, the San Antonio Amateurs worked the San Antonio Rock N' Roll Marathon. Over 30,000 people signed up for this event.
>>BREAKING NEWS from District 1: Christine Smith, N5CAS, ARRL ARES, District 1 DEC, reports that they have a new ARES group being formed for Liberty County, Al Andrew N5WWS has agreed to take on the position of EC. It has been a couple years since we had coverage in Liberty County and the Liberty County Emergency Management Coordinator met with us and seems very eager to work with Al and the group. Now we just need to get the word out that there is still a need for help in Galveston County.
>>Howard Bingham, KE5AJP, wants us to know that the Houston SHOT Net meets every Tuesday at 8 pm local time on 28.488. N5MT, Mike Davidson calls the net and it is a "Directed" net. All are invited to participate.
A new net in the Houston area, is the "Boneheads Net", it is on 28.360 at 6 PM every day. Most participants are in Northwest Houston toward the Cypress and Spring area, although some from other parts of Houston participate, including a few mobiles while driving home. The "Boneheads Net" is an informal "ragchew" net. All are invited to participate.
When 10 M is open, it's not unusual to have over 20 check-in to the Houston SHOT Net. Hams check in from Texas, Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, the Ohio River Valley, and Illinois.
Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club (BVARC) conducts a "Public Service Net" on Monday's at 8:00 PM local time on the 146.94 repeater. The repeater is located near DeWalt, TX on a TV station tower. All are invited to participate. The club website can be found at: www.BVARC.org
>> Scott Mc Mullen, W5ESE, would like to remind us about the CW Traffic Nets here in the West Gulf Division. Texas stations are also welcome on the Oklahoma Training Net, which could be useful for folks who don't have an 80m antenna. West Gulf Division CW Nets are as follows:
Oklahoma Training Net (OTN) 7120.6 KHz daily 5:15 pm CST Texas CW Net/early (TEX) 3541 KHz daily 7:00 pm CST Texas Slow Net (TSN) 3552 KHz daily 7:45 pm CST Texas CW Net/late (TEX) 3541 KHz daily 10:00 pm CST
>>Dallas, KD4HNX, reports that Travis and Williamson Co ARES participated in a multi-county drill involving 19 hospitals on Nov 3rd. The EmComm goal was to test the new commercial radios and Ham Radio communications. In particular the Hams were to communicate with one of the hospital's corporate offices in Nashville Tennessee.
Nashville ARES is a sister/rival to the Williamson Co ARES group. They brought on-line the 2nd EmComm PMBO just before we brought on the 3rd one. They snagged the wcares.org URL, and we took wc-ares.org. Their club call is WC4EOC and ours is WC5EOC.
WCARES TX manned 5 hospitals, 1 portable packet station, 1 HF/Winlink NCS and 1 VHF voice NCS. TCARES members manned 1 hospital and the Austin EOC. A total of 49 Winlink messages and close to a dozen of them had ICS 213 attachments were passed. We were able to pass both Winlink email and HF voice messages from WCARES (TX) to WCARES (TN).
>>Charles Brabham, N5PVL, recently published an interesting article concerning the NBEMS system. The article is entitled: NBEMS - Doing It The Ham Radio Way. Here is the link to the article: http://uspacket.org/network/index.php/topic,44.0.html
>>Lou Everett, Sr., WA5LOU, wants to remind everyone to participate in our HF Nets. The Texas Traffic Net on 3.873 at 6:30 PM Local Time daily, the Daytime Texas Traffic Net on 7.285 at 8:30 AM local time daily, the 7.290 Traffic Net at 10:00 AM and 1:00 PM local time daily, and the Texas ARES Net on Mondays at 7:30 PM local time. These are all great nets, Folks, and all are invited to participate.
Thank you all for your submissions to our STX Monthly News. We have a lot of activity throughout the STX Section. October and November have been great months.
Until next month, Y'all take care, and don't eat to much Turkey on Thanksgiving Day.
73
Lee Cooper, W5LHC Section Manager, STX Section
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