Be part of REACT history in the making!

Attend your first-ever (likely) RI Board Meeting, right in the comfort of your home. Tune in anytime today. The meeting begins between 9:00 Central Time this morning (Saturday, March 13th).

Join the meeting or leave whenever you like. You won’t disturb anyone.  Bring your own snacks or drinks!

The address is below so you are all set.   Your browser will need to have Adobe Flash Player installed in order to play the video, but if you don’t have it, don’t worry.  Your browser ought to prompt you to install it when you get there if you don’t already have it.

Those who tuned in yesterday were very enthusiastic.

Here’s your chance.   Live Audio / Video (one-way) lets you have the viewpoint of that little fly in the corner of the room listening in while nobody knows you are there.

http://www.ustream.tv/reactsecretary

Ron McCracken,
Public Information

REACT Month will soon be upon us. Has your Team planned its events and media releases?

SOS Drills are ideal ways to mark REACT Month. Your Team can host one or several, depending on the area it serves. Safety displays are another event for malls, fairs, etc. Have you offered speakers on radio safety to service clubs, churches, schools, Scout groups, etc.?

Post your ideas for REACT Month here and on any of the REACT lists. Help to spark ideas in the minds of other Teams. Best wishes.

The REACT International Board of Directors will hold their Annual Board Meeting in the Dallas / Ft. Worth Texas area on March 12-13th.   Actual location will be the Drury Inn next to the DFW Airport.   Seating is limited due to the size of the meeting room, so we invite everyone who would like to attend, to RSVP so we can try to accommodate everyone possible.  Most directors / officers will be arriving on Thursday, March 11th or earlier, and departing on Sunday, March 14th. 

We anticipate the meetings to start Friday morning around 8:30am or so, running until 5-6pm in the evening.   The meeting will recess and resume Saturday morning before 9am.   There will likely be some sort of organized event / dinner on Friday and possibly Saturday evenings, but the hotel offers free food in the morning and evenings as well.  

We’re also looking into broadcasting the open portions of the Board meeting live, via http://www.ustream.tv/user/reactsecretary, using a new webcam with a built in microphone.  This will be a test of the method, the webcam and the available highspeed bandwidth, so we won’t promise it will work 100% as planned.  This will be a one-way broadcast that you can watch and listen to. 

We’re hoping that either the hotel’s Internet will handle the broadcast video load, or we can connect up my CLEAR 4G Wimax Wireless modem and try it instead.  Since the DFW area has been activated by CLEAR, we’ll have access to high speed wireless Internet even if the hotel’s Internet can’t handle the load.

If you want to attend this meeting in person or stay at the hotel to get the lower group rates, please RSVP to Chairman John Knott via email, j.knott@reactintl.org, for details.   You will be responsible for the cost of your own hotel room.

Texas is holding a contest for emergency radio operators. Read up on it. Maybe you could organize one in your state or area. Good fun. Great training. Potential PR bonanza. Congratulations, Texas.

Here is some info about what is being planned for Fall 2010 near the San Antonio, TX area by the Bexar Operators Group, the local REACT Team and Hams from several other area ham clubs.

At this time, we have at least two teams wishing to compete in this competition which is slated to take place in September 2010.  Bob K5AUW, Lee N5NTG and Bob W2IK have agreed to be the judges.

We are hoping that others, especially local emcomm groups or radio clubs, will assemble 4 members to compete. More than one team may compete representing any group. Please spread the word to all the amateur radio clubs in Texas that this event is open to everyone, but there will be a registration cutoff date so no one should be expecting to “just show up” and compete.

No registration = no competing.

Very shortly, a more complete competition outline will be posted.

continue reading "Emergency Radio Contest"

Every year, the Hill Country REACT Team has been helping out the with the Christmas Parade in Sattler, Texas, just east of Canyon Lake. We organize and run the two parade staging areas, mix the two together before they hit the parade route, and ensure that the announcer knows about any changes before they reach his or her location. We get the help of a couple neighboring ham clubs from as far away as 50-70 miles (GVARC, HC Hams).

 
continue reading "2009 Christmas Parade -- Texas Style"

Okay, the long wait is finally over!   We’ve compressed 24 hours of operation down to about 5 minutes, without using the fast forward button.  Amazing, but true!  Of course since we weren’t personally there the whole time to take photos and videos of every single operator, we weren’t able to include more than the three operators shown in the video (recorded live) plus a few others that had their photos taken and forwarded to us.

Hill Country REACT coordinated this event held at the Austin / San Antonio National Weather Service Office in New Braunfels, Texas.  We had the cooperation and support of several other area ham clubs to man the ham radios for this 24 hour event.

Most of the footage in the video was provided by Lee N5NTG, with some by Bob W2IK and Wade W5ERX.

Here is the YouTube link to this video…

Head for www.serve.gov and click on ‘recruit’ at the bottom of the page.

Presto. A list of about a dozen sites where your Team can post calls for volunteers. Post on as many as you wish.

Plan your messages carefully. Mention REACT often. Stress your Team’s safety role and that it supplements emergency response agencies on request.

Great chances to recruit. Super worldwide PR for your Team and all of REACT. Get to it quickly. The sooner you do, the faster your Team begins to reap the benefits. Let the blog know of your Team’s successes. It will encourage others. Thanks.

Ron McCracken, Public Relations

An annual tradition in the Canyon Lake area, is for all the area merchants and non-profit organizations to set up booths / tables along FM2673 that runs thru the main stretch of Sattler, Texas (just east of Canyon Lake, west of New Braunfels, TX). This stretch has grown over the years from the north side of town down past River Road, to where it now reaches a total of about 2.5 miles in length. Comal County Sheriff deputies in their patrol cars, supplimented by by local Constables, provide some safety issues at designated crossing points to allow participants to cross the busy road, especially after dark.

The event is sponsored by the Canyon Lake Chamber of Commerce. Hill Country REACT has been participating in this annual event for at least 15 year, first as Comal County REACT and now as Hill Country REACT. The Chamber in recent years, has been providing REACT with the candy to distribute, and this year we passed out nearly 80 pounds in about 2 hours.

Here is a short 8 minute video montage taken during this 2 hour event… Watch it in full screen mode for best viewing, especially when video gets a bit darker toward the end…

2009 National Weather Service
Skywarn Recognition Day
December 4-5, 2009
0000-2400 UTC  (Translate that to 7pm-7pm ET)

November 14th was the 39th annual Veterans Day parade in Universal City, Texas.   Hill Country REACT organized the hams to support this event, as they have for the past 20+ years. But without the support of all the non-REACT member hams, this event would not have run as smoothly as it did.

Ham Operator volunteers manned barricades along the parade route, and at 10:15am, the call came over the radio to “put up your barricades, no traffic goes north on the parade route!” About 5 minutes later, the call went out “stop all traffic on the parade route both directions!”

Is that a UC PD car behind me?

Two of the UC Police cars had REACT members riding in them, RI Region 7 Director Charles Land KC5NKK was Net Control (shown in photo) plus our team’s Operation Officer Gary Tangrady K5GST road with the captain in charge roaming up and down the course. 

We had a couple dozen Motorcycle Marshals cruising the course along with UC PD motorcycle and bicycle police officers. There were too many side parking lot exits to block them all, so periodically the call came on the radio “watch out for that red car going north from such and such location…” or “this driver needs to get to work…” or “this driver didn’t know we were having a parade today…”

Our “job” today was not to argue with the drivers or spectators, but simply to inform them of what the UC PD had told us, and to ensure the barricades were in place on time. We let the UC PD pull over those who wished to press the issue further.

I’ve posted some photos from the parade.  Click on this link for all photos… Veterans Day Parade – Universal City TX – N5NTG