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The next club meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 27 at the Cielito Lindo Mexican Restaurant in Bellville, in the private back room. As usual, dinner is at 6 and the meeting starts at 7. Beat the heat with a fishbowl margarita or two. All are welcome!

Club meetings are always held on the lAST Wednesday of the month (except for Nov & Dec)

New members are 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.

This Saturday, September 2 the club will be launching a picoballoon at the Austin County Fairgrounds in Bellville. The launch is planned for 9 am. We'll have a group breakfast afterward at a local restaurant.

The Austin County Fairgrounds is on the northeast edge of Bellville on FM 159. From the courthouse, go down the hill and over the railroad tracks, bear to the left at the "Y" (stay on FM 159). The fairgrounds will be on your right.

You can also try spotting with WSJT-X on 20m WSPR, the balloon will be transmitting every 10 minutes on the 8's.

Our group 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.

The Bellville repeater system (C4FM on UHF and Analog on VHF) are now connected to our XLX multiprotocol server on the internet. This allows DMR users to communicate on the repeater system via a hotspot/internet connection. It also allows users with Yaesu C4FM digital radios to connect to the repeater via a hotspot, enabling long-distance communication via the internet. Hotspots are a small, inexpensive transceiver typically based on a Raspberry Pi with an RF board 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.

The Wires-X link on the Bellville repeater has been retired, since the XLX server has replaced this functionality. The XLX server has been moved and is now housed in the Bellville shack.

Note that the Columbus repeater is Digital C4FM only, FM analog will not work! The Columbus repeater has a DG-ID of 01.

Club Officers for 2023-2024:

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: N5RWK Roger

2nd Tuesday: KG5NCL John

3rd Tuesday: KE5FN Jim

4th Tuesday: KF5ZRT Gary

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