Last edit: 3/2/2026 by N5RWK
March 2026 Announcements
The next club meeting will be on Wednesday, March 25 in the back room at the Cielito Lindo Mexican Restaurant in Bellville. Dinner at 6, Meeting at 7. All are welcome!
Club meetings are always held on the lAST Wednesday of the month (except for Nov & Dec)
JOIN THE CLUB!
New members are always welcome! You don't need to be a radio expert, all you need is to have an interest in radio communications. For your convenience, you can complete the following application form and mail it to the address above, or bring it to the next club meeting.
Upcoming and Current Events:
America250 WAS Event - ARRL is celebrating a year-long Worked-All-States operating event celebrating America's 250th Anniversary. See https://www.arrl.org/america250-was for details.
Belton HamExpo - April 10-11 (Friday-Sat). See https://tarc.org/hamexpo-schedule/
Balloon Launch - Remi N5CNB, Nathalie N5ATH and Sebastien
W5IKD launched a picoballoon on March 2 at 7h45 local time. The balloon's callsign is N5SUZ and the tracker is a Zachtek transmitting on the 10m band. Track online at this link:
https://wsprtv.com/?cs=N5SUZ&ch=Z2&band=10m&start_date=2026-03-01
Emergency Management Frequencies and Nets:
This page has some good info for Harris County and the surrounding region: https://stxd14ares.org/frequencies/
The
Bellville repeater system (C4FM on UHF and Analog on VHF) is connected to our XLX979 multiprotocol server on the internet. This
allows DMR and Yaesu System Fusion users to communicate on the repeater system via a
hotspot with an internet connection. The YSF server is 87708. Hotspots are a
small, inexpensive transceiver typically based on a Raspberry Pi with
an RF board running the Pi-Star software, and connects to the internet usually with a wifi
connection. For an overview and some basic instructions on how to
set up a hotspot see this PDF file.
You can also connect to the club repeater through the internet without a radio! You'll need a computer running the BlueDV software (https://www.pa7lim.nl/bluedv/), as well as a USB AMBE3000 vocoder dongle such as the DVMega DVStick 30 or the Northwest Digital Radio ThumbDV. If you're interested, move details can be provided via the club reflector.
Our club is affiliated with W5YI-VEC for administering tests. If you are a prospective ham, or already a ham looking to upgrade your license, send an email to info at w5sfa.org for information or to schedule your test. Note that the FCC is now charging a $35 fee for new licenses, renewals and vanity calls. License upgrades and changes of address are exempt from this new fee.
Club Officers for 2025-2026:
President: Bev Cucuzza, KB8PRC
Vice-President: Gary Baldwin, KF5ZRT
Secretary/Treasurer: Kathy Croker, KB5ITB
W5SFA Weekly VHF Net:
The Stephen F. Austin Radio Club weekly net meets every Tuesday at 7:00 PM on the Club's Bellville VHF repeater (analog FM) or the UHF repeater (C4FM digital). See the REPEATERS link to the left for frequencies. All licensed hams are welcome to participate.
Net Control Schedule:
1st Tuesday: KF5ZRT Gary
2nd Tuesday: KG5NCL John
3rd Tuesday: KE5FN Jim
4th Tuesday: N5RWK Roger
5th Tuesday (if there is one): N5RWK Roger
.
Stephen F. Austin Radio Club List serve (reflector) information:
http://mail.w5sfa.org/mailman/listinfo/w5sfa_w5sfa.org