September 2020
Happy 15th Birthday to the HAMsters
06/09/20 10:20
This coming September 17th will be our 15th Anniversary of the HAMster Amateur Radio Group. With that realization, I started thinking back to our founding and thought I would recap the story of how our UNCLUB began and the original founding members of the group.
Some time early to Mid August 2005, a handful of us who had regular conversations on the then stellar repeater on 147.140 started having morning conversations as we woke up and started our day and some of us heading off to work. Out of those conversations, Ruth KE5MHJ expressed an interest in designing a unique antenna and building it.
So we all met one Saturday morning at the Taco Cabana in Universal City, Texas and Ruth KE5MHJ, Bill WX5W, John KC5CEN, James N5JAZ and myself Greg N5XO began discussing the design of a 6 meter antenna. We wanted a good high gain Omni Directional antenna for 6 meters Single Side Band Activity.
We began working on the design over Taco’s, coffee and coke and after a few hours we had a basic design, etc. We excitedly began to work on the construction of the antenna. This actually turned into a very fun project over a few week period and had an interesting side effect, as we discussed the project on the air in our morning round tables, I guess our excitement for the project was infectious and we began to have others joining our round table, till one day early in September we noticed that our morning group had grown from 5 of us, to over 20 people.
One morning we decided that we should all have a FACE to FACE meeting and meet each other as most of us did not know each other, so we called it a Meet & Greet and met at the Taco Cabana in New Braunfels as it was a good half way point between the folks in Austin and us in San Antonio.
We were pleasantly surprised that our first Meet & Greet had over 25 people join us. At that original meeting we decided to start having an informal Meet & Greet monthly, just to enjoy hanging out with each other and getting to know each other. So the 1st Saturday of each month we began meeting at the Taco Cabana on Pat Booker Rd in Universal City and as they say History was formed.
As our morning round table continued to grow with morning conversations having over 14 people at a time in the conversations, Bill WX5W started keeping a morning log of who was on so he could remember everyone’s name and who was in the conversation and refer to it as we moved around from individual to individual. He always jokingly referred to his list as the “Unusual Suspects” and every time someone new joined a conversation in the morning he would say “let me add your name to the list of Unusual Suspects”.
As such we all started referring to ourselves as the Unusual Suspects and that is how we began to be known through out San Antonio, New Braunfels and Austin area.
We had a few folks who were wanting to sell or trade some items, so we decided to have a spur of the moment Saturday morning Meet & Greet with a small parking lot Swap Meet.
We all met Saturday the 17th of September 2005, and were pleasantly surprised to have over 49 people show up for the breakfast {Which I am sure pleased Taco Cabana as well with a nice big crowd}.
I suggested that day, we should form a formal club….but expressed that I did not want to have any officers, Dues, and NO FORMAL MEETINGS.
So that day, we all voted to form an UNCLUB, and we called ourselves the Unusual Suspects.
Over the next few years, the UNCLUB grew and we had some awesome fun….We saw the Unusual Suspects doing things as an UNCLUB that most clubs were not doing, we hosted a remote field day weekend every year at Ruth’s and My ranch….with 3 days of camping, radio operating, antenna experimentation and battery and solar power experiments. We had 35 to 45 people attend this annual event for 5 years in a row.
During this period in late 2006, we also shifted from repeater activity to Simplex and moved to 146.565 and started on our path to building high quality simplex stations that were not dependent upon Repeaters. In the beginning this was very frustrating as we quickly found our stations were not as wonderful as we originally believed, but we quickly learned what was required to build quality Simplex Stations and became leaders in the promotion of Simplex Activity and Station building for the region.
In 2008 I personally became very interested in Single Side Band Operation on VHF/UHF and had some good conversations with folks in Houston, Austin and some times Dallas, but was dismayed at the lack of activity here in San Antonio area. So I decided to start generating activity and what better way than to preach the wonders of Single Side Band Operation to everyone I came in contact with.
My first stroke of good luck with getting someone local to join me on Single Side Band was with Jerry May KB2WDM, he had a TS-2000 as I did and we picked up some low cost Omni antennas on E-Bay and stacked them to get some gain, plus I had my 17 element Yagi as well. With a couple hundred watts each, we began a 2 man net on 144.210 SSB every week. We also formed a club called the HAMster Weak Signal Group.
I reached out to every VHF/UHF Weak signal person I could find around the State and told them I was trying to build both interest and excitement for this mode, and would they be interested in joining our group to help get the numbers up and the activity. Almost all of them were very enthused with the idea and Bill W3XO of VHF/UHF fame joined us, the massive contest station of K5QE joined us and the 4 of us began working each other and holding a weekly net.
Soon we were heard by others and slowly over a few month period more and more people joined the net, many of them hearing us by accident and joining in, others heard from the spreading word and we started speaking at local clubs to help promote interest in this mode.
The HAMster Group was slowly growing to 10, 15, 20 and soon 30 plus members.
Because the founders of the HAMsters and the Unusual Suspects were all the same people we held JOINT GET TOGETHERS.
One day, at the meeting Mark AC5RN pointed out that almost all of the two UNCLUBS were the same members and that we were splitting resources, plus he felt that the name “Unusual Suspects” had a negative connotation to it, so we voted at that meeting to merge the two into one group and adopt the name HAMster Amateur Radio Group.
And so with great fan fare we became the HAMsters Amateur Radio Group.
We have gone from a humble 5 members with an antenna construction dream, to today having just under 200 members spanning 3 countries and 14 States the HAMster Group is proud to be moving into our 15th year of operating.
We are still remaining true to our roots to promote Amateur Radio and to most importantly have fun and make new friends.
So with that I say.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAMsters! Read More…
Some time early to Mid August 2005, a handful of us who had regular conversations on the then stellar repeater on 147.140 started having morning conversations as we woke up and started our day and some of us heading off to work. Out of those conversations, Ruth KE5MHJ expressed an interest in designing a unique antenna and building it.
So we all met one Saturday morning at the Taco Cabana in Universal City, Texas and Ruth KE5MHJ, Bill WX5W, John KC5CEN, James N5JAZ and myself Greg N5XO began discussing the design of a 6 meter antenna. We wanted a good high gain Omni Directional antenna for 6 meters Single Side Band Activity.
We began working on the design over Taco’s, coffee and coke and after a few hours we had a basic design, etc. We excitedly began to work on the construction of the antenna. This actually turned into a very fun project over a few week period and had an interesting side effect, as we discussed the project on the air in our morning round tables, I guess our excitement for the project was infectious and we began to have others joining our round table, till one day early in September we noticed that our morning group had grown from 5 of us, to over 20 people.
One morning we decided that we should all have a FACE to FACE meeting and meet each other as most of us did not know each other, so we called it a Meet & Greet and met at the Taco Cabana in New Braunfels as it was a good half way point between the folks in Austin and us in San Antonio.
We were pleasantly surprised that our first Meet & Greet had over 25 people join us. At that original meeting we decided to start having an informal Meet & Greet monthly, just to enjoy hanging out with each other and getting to know each other. So the 1st Saturday of each month we began meeting at the Taco Cabana on Pat Booker Rd in Universal City and as they say History was formed.
As our morning round table continued to grow with morning conversations having over 14 people at a time in the conversations, Bill WX5W started keeping a morning log of who was on so he could remember everyone’s name and who was in the conversation and refer to it as we moved around from individual to individual. He always jokingly referred to his list as the “Unusual Suspects” and every time someone new joined a conversation in the morning he would say “let me add your name to the list of Unusual Suspects”.
As such we all started referring to ourselves as the Unusual Suspects and that is how we began to be known through out San Antonio, New Braunfels and Austin area.
We had a few folks who were wanting to sell or trade some items, so we decided to have a spur of the moment Saturday morning Meet & Greet with a small parking lot Swap Meet.
We all met Saturday the 17th of September 2005, and were pleasantly surprised to have over 49 people show up for the breakfast {Which I am sure pleased Taco Cabana as well with a nice big crowd}.
I suggested that day, we should form a formal club….but expressed that I did not want to have any officers, Dues, and NO FORMAL MEETINGS.
So that day, we all voted to form an UNCLUB, and we called ourselves the Unusual Suspects.
Over the next few years, the UNCLUB grew and we had some awesome fun….We saw the Unusual Suspects doing things as an UNCLUB that most clubs were not doing, we hosted a remote field day weekend every year at Ruth’s and My ranch….with 3 days of camping, radio operating, antenna experimentation and battery and solar power experiments. We had 35 to 45 people attend this annual event for 5 years in a row.
During this period in late 2006, we also shifted from repeater activity to Simplex and moved to 146.565 and started on our path to building high quality simplex stations that were not dependent upon Repeaters. In the beginning this was very frustrating as we quickly found our stations were not as wonderful as we originally believed, but we quickly learned what was required to build quality Simplex Stations and became leaders in the promotion of Simplex Activity and Station building for the region.
In 2008 I personally became very interested in Single Side Band Operation on VHF/UHF and had some good conversations with folks in Houston, Austin and some times Dallas, but was dismayed at the lack of activity here in San Antonio area. So I decided to start generating activity and what better way than to preach the wonders of Single Side Band Operation to everyone I came in contact with.
My first stroke of good luck with getting someone local to join me on Single Side Band was with Jerry May KB2WDM, he had a TS-2000 as I did and we picked up some low cost Omni antennas on E-Bay and stacked them to get some gain, plus I had my 17 element Yagi as well. With a couple hundred watts each, we began a 2 man net on 144.210 SSB every week. We also formed a club called the HAMster Weak Signal Group.
I reached out to every VHF/UHF Weak signal person I could find around the State and told them I was trying to build both interest and excitement for this mode, and would they be interested in joining our group to help get the numbers up and the activity. Almost all of them were very enthused with the idea and Bill W3XO of VHF/UHF fame joined us, the massive contest station of K5QE joined us and the 4 of us began working each other and holding a weekly net.
Soon we were heard by others and slowly over a few month period more and more people joined the net, many of them hearing us by accident and joining in, others heard from the spreading word and we started speaking at local clubs to help promote interest in this mode.
The HAMster Group was slowly growing to 10, 15, 20 and soon 30 plus members.
Because the founders of the HAMsters and the Unusual Suspects were all the same people we held JOINT GET TOGETHERS.
One day, at the meeting Mark AC5RN pointed out that almost all of the two UNCLUBS were the same members and that we were splitting resources, plus he felt that the name “Unusual Suspects” had a negative connotation to it, so we voted at that meeting to merge the two into one group and adopt the name HAMster Amateur Radio Group.
And so with great fan fare we became the HAMsters Amateur Radio Group.
We have gone from a humble 5 members with an antenna construction dream, to today having just under 200 members spanning 3 countries and 14 States the HAMster Group is proud to be moving into our 15th year of operating.
We are still remaining true to our roots to promote Amateur Radio and to most importantly have fun and make new friends.
So with that I say.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAMsters! Read More…
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