West Texas Section News February 2011

2/25/2011

News From Around West Texas.

 

The biggest news this month is the possible threat to our 440 MHz band. A bill, backed by the U. S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, has been filed in the House.  If fully implemented, HR 607 would result in the sale of a critical portion of our UHF allocation to private industry. Your ARRL representatives at HQ and in Washington are working with congressional staff members to protect our interests.

 

West Gulf Director Dr. Woolweaver (K5RAV) recently conducted a Webinar for all West Gulf Affiliated Club officers. The primary topic was the 2011 Club membership contest. Invitations were extended to all Affiliated Clubs. If your club did not receive an invitation, an officer needs to update the club’s contact information at ARRL HQ. Bottom line is that if HQ is sending your information to someone who has not been an officer since 2007 or maybe not even a member of your club anymore, we may have a communications problem. 

 

As covered in last month’s WTX Section News, my term ends on June 30, 2011 and I will not be a candidate for re-election. I had a friend jokingly (I think) suggest that if no one filed, I would just continue serving. On paper, that is correct but I have made a commitment to both my family and my body to retire.   Another ten days back and forth to the clinic this month have worn me down, both physically and mentally. Frankly, if I had a replacement, I would turn the keyboard over to them now.  Along the same line, all section appointments run concurrently with the Section Manager. Current Assistant Section Managers appointments will expire when my term ends.

 

Check out the lead article in the Winter edition of CQ-VHF.  Mozar Naing KE5VKO and Nozar Naing KE5VKP are undergraduates at Texas Tech and, working with their project faculty advisor Dr. Michael Helm WC5Z also of Lubbock, published an excellent technical article  covering the design and development of a 2-meter to 10-meter linear translator. The ultimate application of this device will be as a payload on a high-altitude balloon flight. As I read the article, it came as no surprise that idea for the project came from a suggestion by WTX ASM Jerome Doerrie K5IS of Booker. Jerome is our high-altitude balloon guru for West Texas.

 

The first correct response to last month’s trivia question came from Terry Bajuk KS5Z/ of Lubbock. Terry’s correct response was quickly followed by Jim K5BZH of Amarillo. The answer was Robert Moore W6DEI who conducted the first Single Sideband Suppressed Carrier experiments on 75 meters prior to WWII.

 

The West Texas ARRL Section Convention will be held in conjunction with the Midland ARC St. Patrick’s Day Hamfest on March 19, 2011. ARRL DXCC, VUCC, and WAS card checking services will be centrally located at the ARRL Booth for your convenience this year. Les Bannon WF5E will be available to check your DXCC cards at the ARRL Booth from 9 AM to 11 AM. ARRL Awards Managers Mark Cranford N5XXD, Sara Gail Cranford N5ZMP, and John Dyer AE5B will be available throughout the day to check your cards for other ARRL awards. Please have your application completed before presenting it and your cards to the checkers.

 

John Dyer

AE5B

West Texas Section Manager

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AMATEUR RADIO EMERGENCY SERVICE

 

Monthly Section Emergency Coordinator Report to ARRL Headquarters

ARRL Section: West Texas Month: January Year: 2011

AMATEUR RADIO EMERGENCY SERVICE

Total # of ARES members: 319 Change since last month: 8 DEC's/EC's and Net reporting this month 18 ARES nets active: 15 Number with NTS liaison: 3

Calls of DEC's/EC's reporting: W5NPR, KM5VM, W5ZOX, KD5HYB, KD5KBU, KJ5DX,

WA5NBP. N5SQK, N5FRN.KB5HPT, N5DO, KC5NHV, WT5C,AF5SS, KE5OG, KD5URW,

KD4LXC, KC5NOX

Number of drills, tests and training sessions this month: 7 Man Hours: 243

Number of public service events this month: 1 Man hours: 38

Number of emergency operations this month: 0 Man hours: 0

Total number of ARES operations this month: 8 Total Man hours 291

Comments SEC:

January and the start of a new year finds ARES involved in searching for missing teenager Hailey

Dunn of Colorado City. Emergency Coordinators in Big Spring, Abilene, and  Sweetwater combined to help in searching for the missing teenager. She has not been found but their participation was in the best tradition of Amateur Service. Kudo's to all who were involved. The recent cold weather coupled with extremely low temperatures and large accumulation of snow in some areas did not apparently need our help. Most were involved in staying warm and taking care of there needs.

The Midland Hamfest is coming soon on March 19. I hope that many of you can make it. Always enjoy seeing everyone.

J.T. Caldwell WA5ZFH West Texas Section Emergency Coordinator

 

Following Comments taken from EC Monthly Reports:

Comments:

There were several reports with excellent comments on there operations but we are only able to report on one due to their length. Howard County, Mitchell County is where the search for Hailey

Dunn started and Net Control was established on the WTX Connection.

Taylor County:

     As you are aware, the Taylor County ARES group along with the Sweetwater ARES group assisted with the Find Hailey Dunn situation in Mitchell County. We took a group to Mitchell County (Colorado City) on Saturday, Jan 8. After I received your call, I called the Howard County EC and was told that they had the north and west side of CC covered that they could use our help on the east side of CC. I started trying to activate Taylor County ARES via radio about 12:20 pm, but was only able to get a couple of people to respond on the radio. I then started calling a couple of people to try to get them to make some phone calls. I also sent some txt messages. My counterpart (Gary Armstrong- KC5NOX) from Sweetwater was also contacted to see if he could mobilize some help from Sweetwater. Bottom line was that between us, we were able to get 13 people to respond to CC. Some of these were ham operators, and some were from my fire department. I threw together a "GO" bag in a matter of about 5-10 minutes that had all of the equipment in it that I thought I needed.

We left Abilene about 1:30 pm and met up with the Sweetwater group in Sweetwater McDonalds. We arrived at CC about 2:45 pm and checked in with the volunteer coordinator at the old Family Dollar store on Oak Street. There was one ham (from CC) located at the volunteer station, but his radio battery wasn't charged. I asked Daniel to stay at the volunteer staging area so we can have radio contact. He was able to keep the CC mayor informed of developments in the search. Law Enforcement had a command post in Dunn (a city north of CC), but wasn't allowing any civilians in that area. We were first told to go to Hwy 208 north toward the airport and meet up with some of the search teams. We went to that location, and didn't really find much there, except for a small group of searchers from Midland TX. I contacted the NCS and was told that we needed to go back to town and then go south on South Hwy 208 toward the county line. We traveled about 13 miles south of CC and set up our search team (Abilene, Sweetwater, & Midland group). Kendall -KC5FFQ set up cross band out of his truck, so we could have radio contact using hand-helds with the NCS. We had about 12 people in this search party. We began at a creek with 6 on each side of the road, spread out about a mile on either side of Hwy 208 and began our search pattern. We walked approximately 1 - 1.5 miles to the north and used orange flagging tape to mark our search area. We didn't find anything significant. Derek  (K5ISS) was searching in a different area along IH 20. He did run across a couple in a 4 wheeler that stated to him they were searching for Hailey. They also had alcohol with them and couldn't tell Derek which search team they were with. This information was communicated back to Daniel (at Volunteer Staging) and he, in turn, gave the information to the CC mayor. She then passed the information to law enforcement. We worked our search area until sun down and then returned to the volunteer staging area to check out and go home.

Signature: Bill Shaw Title: Taylor County EC Call sign: KJ5DX

 

Traffic Reports:

W5NPR Cycle 1, 19 Cycle 2, 21 KM5VM Cycle 1, 23 Cycle 2, 28

Traffic Delivered: 0

Traffic Received : 0

BBEN Total 8

TX TR Net 3

ARRES 3

BB 2 Mtr Net 7

NTEN 3

BB 2 Mtr Net Sessions 5 56 check ins

Other Traffic Nets:

Panhandle Nets combined:

Sessions 7 with 63 check ins

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Silent Key Report

Ken Williams K5JOG Midland

Carl Womack K5CEW (ex-KD5MQL) El Paso

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West Texas Net ReportsJan 2011

Name/sessions/checkins   
El Paso Area
  WTRA (K5ELP) Monday Night Net: 5/86
  SCARC Thursday Night (K5WPH) Net: 4/49
  QCWA (W5RO) Chapter 64 Net:  5/38
  El Paso D-Star Net 1/6
Big Bend Area 
  Big Bend Emergency Net: 5/230
  Big Bend 2 Meter Net 5/51
San Angelo Area 
  Concho Valley 2 Meter Net:   no report
  Tom Green ARES Net:  no report
Panhandle Area 
   Panhandle Amateur Information Net: 5/44
   Panhandle ARES Net: 2/19
Taylor County ARES Net:  no report
 
Coming Events  

 

March 19 56th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Hamfest and West Texas Section ARRL Convention http://www.w5qgg.org/marc/hamfest.html

March 19 BS ARS annual meeting Midland, Texas

April 23 Earth Day 2011 Special Event Station W5E Earth, Texas

May 14 Panhandle ARC Hamfest

June 10-11 ARRL National Convention (Ham-Com 2011) http://www.hamcom.org/

 

Big Bend Emergency Net/ West Texas Section Net 3922 Khz Sunday at 8:30 AM CST