All who are interested, please take a look at the information below:

Houston, TX, May 23, 2012:

Houston area based Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club will celebrate its fifth year of participation in the annual Museum Ships Weekend Event, June 2-3, 2012 by offering a special commemorative certificate to amateur stations who contact all five Texas Based Museum ships during the event. The five museum ships and their call signs include the Submarine USS Cavalla and Destroyer Escort USS Stewart (KK5W) in Galveston, Texas, The Battleship USS Texas (NA5DV), in La Porte Texas, The Tall Ship Elissa (N5E) also in Galveston and the Aircraft Carrier USS Lexington (W5LEX) in Corpus Christi, Texas.
To earn the Texas Navy Certificate, amateur stations must submit proof of contact with all five Texas Museum ships to QSL Manager, KK5W along with a #10 SASE. The address is in QRZ.com.
Museum Ships Weekend is an annual operating event sponsored worldwide by the Battleship New Jersey Amateur Radio Station with more than 90 ships participating this year. “We decided to put in a special Texas twist to the event to commemorate our five years of taking part”, said Ron Litt, K5HM, one of the Event Coordinators.
The Texas Navy Certificate is a cooperative effort between four different area clubs, In addition to the Brazos Valley club, members of the Battleship Texas Amateur Radio Station, The Tidelands Amateur Radio Society and the South Texas Amateur Radio Club are participating as well.

For more information contact:
Ron Litt, K5HM
281-961-4570
K5HM@arrl.net

I’ve got this posted over at the www.na5dv.org site, but since we always have such a good turnout from KARS, I wanted to make sure everyone knew the details and how quickly it’s coming up!

The Battleship TEXAS will be participating in this year’s Museum Ships Weekend 0000Z June 2, through 2359Z June 3, 2012. During the day, we’ll be primarily on the upper bands, 10m/15m/20m. During the evenings we will shift to 20m/40m/80m.

We stay in the General part of the band, and usually on the upper end, wherever we can find a clear spot. We QSL 100%, all we ask is that you please enclose a SASE, and you’ll get a nice full-color QSL card in return. If you include the operator’s name, we’ll do our best to get them to personally sign your card. We usually make quite a few QSOs during the operating period, so that usually results in a LOT of QSL cards to issue. We ask your patience in allowing us time to respond.

Hams (and potential hams!) that wish to operate from the ship are encouraged to come out and enjoy the fun of being on the receiving end of a pileup for a change! In addition, we will be operating 24hrs on the ship, and we have a limited number of overnight spots on the ship. If you want to operate the full stretch with us, we will need advance notice of your intent to stay overnight by emailing prez@na5dv.org. Our activities must be cleared with the TPWD in advance, and we simply are unable to accommodate folks who ask to stay on the ship the day they arrive. Your understanding is appreciated!

You might have seen Google’s April Fools day joke, which showed a morse code interface for Gmail on android devices.  I knew it was a joke, but still thought it was pretty cool.

Well, turns out the app actually exists.  Not as one written by Google, but someone else did it.  I found it on the google market, and if you want to download it, here’s the link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.emergent.android.morseime&feature=search_result

I’ve got it installed on my Epic, and it works really pretty well.  Fun way to practice code, and good encouragement to keep up my learning!

73 Michael

As promised, here’s the powerpoint I used for the presentation at the BVARC hamfest and now the KARS club meeting.

HF Propagation

We’ve just been granted new frequencies!

It’s official — delegates attending the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-12) have approved a new 7-kilohertz-wide secondary allocation between 472-479 kHz for the Amateur Radio Service. While the Final Acts will be signed on Friday, February 17 at the close of the Conference, the new allocation will not take effect until it is entered into the Radio Regulations. No date has been set for this, but it is unlikely to be earlier than January 1, 2013. In any case, no amateur can use the band until his or her national regulations are revised to implement the allocation.

This is definitely Medium Frequency (MF) folks. If you think a 160m antenna is big, wait until you see what a 600m (!) antenna looks like. We are a secondary user, and ERP will be 5w. Also, 7 KHz isn’t much spectrum, but it’s a start! You can read all about it in detail on ARRL’s site:

http://www.arrl.org/news/amateur-radio-gets-secondary-mf-allocation-at-wrc-12

From our Treasurer, Ron:

The KARS membership/Fiscal year is from March to March. Dues are $24 payable to KARS for full membership. Family memberships are $24 plus $12 for second family member and $6 for each additional member. Associate memberships are $15 per year.

Y’all help make Ron’s job easier and pay on time so he doesn’t have to hunt ya down!

Hi all,

I purchased some tower gear this weekend and could use some help getting it down and moved to my place.  The tower is on the ground in sections, but there are many (five or so)  pushup poles that are still up with beams on them.  I’ve got a couple of folks to help me already (thanks Joe and Dave!) but we sure could use some more help to make short work of this.  Those of you who would like to operate the towers and beams in future field days and contests are welcome to come out and lend a hand!

I plan on leaving my house at 8am sharp Saturday morning.  I’ll have room for up to six people, so you don’t even have to drive, except to get to my house.  The site is 25 minutes west of my house in Wallis.  If you can help, we’d sure appreciate it!  Please let me know by email at radioN5TGL@gmail.com.

Thanks!
Michael

We are in the final run down to Winter Field Day on this coming Saturday at 9 AM.

Sachiko has been very busy sending out the food list, but I know we have more people who indicated they wanted to come than showed up on the list!  :)

So far, I have attendance by Phil B., David L., Jason McD., Richard H. and Owen M.  So, if you are coming and you haven’t let anyone know yet, now is a good time to do so.  I’m planning on going out and buying some burgers to help out with the food, so if I don’t know about you, that’s probably not a good thing!

Greetings all,

Well, it’s getting very, very close that time again…time for field day in weather that doesn’t cause us to spontaneously combust!  Here are the details:

The 2012 Winter Field Day will be held from 1700 UCT (12:00 noon EST) Saturday January 28, 2011 through 1700 UCT (12:00 noon EST) Sunday January 29, 2012. The object of the event is familiar to most Amateur Radio operators: set up emergency-style communications and make as many contacts as possible during the 24 hour period. The rules encourage as many contacts on as many bands and modes as possible, because during a real emergency, the most important factor is the ability to communicate, regardless of band, mode or distance.

I’m looking at this as a 24 hr operation, so here’s the bed space count: 1 single air mattress, 2 queen air mattresses, one king bed and one couch. If you are planning on staying overnight please let me know. I don’t want to have a repeat of last year where someone got sent home because of bunk space! From memory, I have Richard and Owen. If there are others, please remind me.

For antennas, I’ve got the Butternut which now works on 80/40/30/20/17/12/10. I have a low 80m dipole which does very well in CONUS. I’ve also got a 160m Inverted L up which covers the states quite nicely. If you have an antenna you want to experiment with, you are more than welcome to do so, but be sure to bring whatever you might need to get it supported. I do have a fishing line slingshot, so that will be availible for getting lines up into trees. I also still have (!) the KARS field day antenna boxes and coax (Sorry Dave) so those should be able to be used for this event too. The only thing I ask is to avoid running antennas that require walking on the roof. Hopefully we will have some cool weather, (if you don’t need a coat like last year, it’s not cool!) and also remember that the back of the property and the big metal building is availible to operate out of too. I’ve been able to burn off my brushpile, so we can have a bonfire in the back if we like.

Now, as for food, Sachiko has sent out the list for folks to contribute to. PLEASE fill in what you plan on bringing. This is so we don’t end up with 10 relish trays. If you can’t open the file, or don’t want to fill it out, please at least communicate to her what it is you intend to bring so we can avoid duplications. Also, my grill will be availible for whatever anyone may want to put on it.

For the folks who didn’t make it out last year, you really missed a good time. Even if you don’t plan on staying the whole time, come on out and enjoy the food and fun. It’s definitely a nice time to be outside, much cooler than the field day in the summer!