The Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club, KK5W is participating in this year’s Museum Ships Weekend. June 1-2, 2013. Our call sign, KK5W will be credited as a contact with both WW II Submarine USS Cavalla and Destroyer Escort USS Stewart. Visit our web page for more information, www.bvarcmswe.org. We will be operating from Seawolf Park in Galveston, Texas, NA-143.

Frequencies as follows:
SSB
7.260 MKHz
14.260 MHz
21.360 MHz
28.360 MHz

CW
7.039 Mhz
14,039 MHz
21.039 KHz
28,039 KHz

Operation on OSCAR satellites is planned for daytime passes on Saturday, June 1.

For the second year, KK5W is sponsoring the Texas Navy Award.

This year’s Texas Navy Fleet is expanded to include:
USS Cavalla and USS Stewart – KK5W
USS Texas – NA5DV
Tall Ship Elissa – N5E
USS Lexington – W5LEX
SS High Flyer and SS Grandcamp Memorial – AC0TX
National Museum of the Pacific War – N5P
For KK5W and AC0TX, one contact counts for both ships.

Provide evidence of two way communication (log extract) with at least four of the call signs during MSWE 2013 to earn the 2013 Texas Navy Certificate. Work all six to earn the coveted “Clean Sweep” endorsement. Visit our web page, www.bvarcmswe.org for information on how to claim the certificate.

73,
Ron, K5HM
Event Coordinator
k5hm.ron@gmail.com
www.qrz.com/db/k5hm

Time to clean out the HAM shack for the next SOARA auction on May 20 at 7pm!  Bring something to sell and come home with a new project!

Auction rules and more information is available at http://www.soara.org/activities/live-auction/

Hunters,

Karl and I have looked at the e-mails in reply to the question of how many hunters would be available and decided to continue with the hunt as scheduled.  It may not be as difficult a hunt, since we are scraping the idea of renting the Goodyear blimp to hover over South Orange County with the hidden transmitter on board.  We are also putting on hold the development program for the transparent aluminum antenna structure.

The hunt will start as scheduled at 1:00PM, Sunday, May 12, 2013. All hunters are welcome.  We look forward to seeing you at . . ., well, at the end of the hunt.

73
Dale, W8RRV

[SOARA hunt information available at http://www.soara.org/activities/transmitter-hunting/]

Sean and I would like to thank all of our operators who worked today’s Orange County Marathon where we handled several medical calls and assorted others. Our thanks go to Vic KK6DHF, Tom KI6DDB, Cor K6COR, Greg K5MGH and his daughter Michelle, Pierrette K6PTR, Sylvia KK6DRM, Mike K6MSM, Volker KK6DZC, Michie KD6CAT, and Patti AD6OH. Please note the combination of experienced hams and new operators. We hope to see all of you at the auction meeting on May 20 at the N.P.Murray Center
Sean AJ6b and Heiko AD6OI

The following article is about an Amateur Radio operator who was working the Boston Marathon during the bombings last week.  Always a good reminder of how Amateur Radio works when cell phones are not available.

http://w3atb.com/66-boston-marathon-2013-bombs-carnage-and-amateur-radio-operators

SOARA is seeking able bodied individuals to help sort the Field Day box at Gilleran park this Saturday, April 27 at 10am.    Should be completed by noon.  No RSVP required, please just show up with gloves.

Any questions?  Contact Heiko at ad6oi@soara.org.

We have two special events coming up.

1. May 4 – High Desert Trails (Ridgecrest)

2. May 5 – Orange County Marathon and Half

3. May 11 – The Traverse (CANCELLED)

4. May 27 – Laguna Hills 1/2 Marathon.

We’re looking for many operators with hand held radios for each event.  Please call or e-mail me if you are interested.

Heiko
ad6oi@soara.org
949-859-3868

Next regular club meeting is:
April 15th, 2013 – 7pm – 9pm
Speaker: Bill Prats, K6ACJ
Topic: Ham Radio for the Arduino and PICAXE

Bill Prats, K6ACJ, first licensed in 1957 holds an Extra class license, is active on HF at home, mobile in his VW Westfalia, and HFPack from Quartzsite, Arizona to Madrid, Spain. He retired from a life long career in high end computer hardware, software, and I.T. management. His favorite projects combine RF electronics, firmware, and packaging to make something durable for use in shack or field.

http://www.biztek.com/k6acj

This is a presentation for a new ARRL book I co-authored, ‘Ham Radio for the Arduino and PICAXE’. The book is a collection of micro controller projects by dynamic amateur radio operators ready for you to use with your Arduino, PICAXE, or Atmel microcontroller. The projects are designed for introductory level to give the reader a very low cost project platform to build and expand using their own ideas. The presentation will include an introduction to the newest low cost micro controller, the Raspberry Pi, a complete Linux system on a very small circuit board.

You will:

Build one of the projects in a weekend, and have something you can use around the shack or in the field.
Learn to customize and extend the hardware and the software.
Solve real problems yourself, using easy-to-use tools and techniques.
Choose from the Arduino, ATTiny, and Picaxe for your project.

The SOARA election ballots were e-mailed on the evening of April 3. They were e-mailed from “board@soara.org” and the subject is “SOARA Election Ballot.” If you did not receive your ballot, please check your spam filter. If you are unable to locate the ballot please e-mail nj6n@soara.org to request your ballot be sent again or to update your e-mail address.