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Amateur Radio and the Texas Floods. -2025

From the ARRL Newsletter July 16 2025

ARES operators were embedded with local served agencies in the areas of central Texas affected by devastating floods. The needs and assignments have been changing, but ARES volunteers were stepping up to the dynamic needs of their communities. “This is a very fluid situation. It changes by the hour,” said ARRL South Texas Section District 7 Emergency Coordinator Terry Jones, K5LGV.

 

The operators were activated on Friday, July 4. Radio amateurs provided communications capabilities to agencies whose primary systems were damaged in the flooding event or where they suffer poor connectivity due to the terrain. ARES members helped the American Red Cross with setup of a reunification shelter in response to the floods. Ten hams were assigned to search-and-rescue teams.

 

Dozens of health and welfare messages were passed by ham radio operators who provided a critical link when phone lines were overwhelmed. “A lot of this is tied to circuit overload preventing folks from making direct contact with family members in the area,” said Kevin McCoy, KF5FUZ. During the floods and subsequent search and recovery missions, ARES members have been deployed to serve many different counties, including hard-hit Kerr and Kendall Counties. Mutual aid has been offered between several surrounding ARRL Sections. —ARRL News Desk

 

Surrey (BC) Amateur Radio Club is coming up on 50 years ! Read the latest.

With over 125 pages here is the Table of Contents

The Table of Contents for the July – August 2025 Communicator issue:

 

  • The Unsung Pioneers – Some lesser-known early Amateur Radio experimenters and the dawn of wireless communication 4
  • Some Early Surrey Amateur Radio Club History 7
  • Telus Donates Tower/Trailer to SARC! 10
  • News You Can’t Lose: The Centennial Gleissberg Cycle 12
  • Page13—News You Can Lose: The Lighter Side 13
  • Amateur Radio History In the Province of British Columbia 15
  • Radio Ramblings: The Grab Bag 18
  • Amateur Radio Contesting… But is your log accurate? 27
  • Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications 30
  • Remote WAN Operation and the Perils of CG-NAT Drive 32
  • Six Meters: The SARC 50.070 MHz beacon 34
  • Spooltenna Product review 36
  • (ISED) Releases New Documents for Amateur Exams 39
  • You’ve got the Power!! Monitoring your voltage 40
  • Reinventing Spark Gap Radio 42
  • 7300 SIG: Efficient SD Card Management 48
  • Antenna Adventures: A compact 2m/70cm J-pole that wasn’t 52
  • Fence Solar – Add a back-up power source 54
  • The first interstellar software update: Voyager 1 58
  • Update on the VE7NFR Pico Balloon 60
  • AMSAT Designates SO-125: A New FM Repeater Satellite 61
  • SkyRoof: New Amateur Satellite Tracking Software 62
  • CQ: International Dog & Cat Days Special Event 63
  • A Comprehensive Guide to Crafting an Engaging QRZ Bio 64
  • Ham Radio Outside the box: An Improved Tank Circuit 67
  • Top Ten Steps For successful portable QRP operation 70
  • Small Pistols of Ham Radio Contesting 73
  • The RSGB Looks at Morse Code 73
  • “Too Many Antenna? What You Talking About Willis?” 74
  • The World of CW – VE9KK Looks at a Contest Keyboard 76
  • Zero Retries: Repeaters Are For Voice, Digipeaters Are For Data – NOT! 78
  • KB6NU: What’s In Your Rubber Duck? 84
  • Foundations of Amateur Radio: What’s really happening at the IARU? 86
  • Back to Basics: The Common Mode Choke 89
  • No-ham Recipes: BBQ Chicken Marinade 93
  • Profiles of SARC members: Fred Orsetti VE7IO 96
  • Another SARC Founder: Ralph Webb VE7OM 100
  • Here is a great new callsign search site 103
  • SARC-SEPAR Field Day 2025: 3F at our Training Centre 104
  • The RAC Canada Day Contest: Celebrating Canada’s 158th 107
  • I have switched PDF readers! 108
  • CQ WPX (CW) Contest: Using VB7MAN 109
  • The New Look of Our Website 110
  • Friends Lost… 111
  • SARC General Meeting Minutes: May 2025 112
  • SARC Annual General Meeting Minutes: June 2025 115
  • The SEPAR Report: Field Day 2025 120
  • QRT: OM, YL, and XYL: Are they still appropriate? 124
  • Ham Leftovers… 127
  • A look back at the Communicator—July 2015 128

Want to read more ?  Scroll down  at

https://ve7sar.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-communicator-july-august-2025.html

 

ARRL Field Day 2025

From the ARRL

 

It’s here! Ham radio’s largest on-air event takes place this weekend. 2025 ARRL Field Day is June 28 – 29. Grab your sunscreen, plenty of water, and snacks, and get on the air with tens of thousands of other hams from all over North America.

This year’s theme of Radio Connects speaks to the power of amateur radio – both practically in the way that radio allows us to communicate across town or around the world, and the way that a love of amateur radio and wireless technology brings people together. At your ARRL Field Day site, you’ll get to connect with people from all walks of life, all generations, and of many different interests, all gathered to celebrate radio and the community it creates.

This is a time to put our best foot forward, welcome newcomers in, host visits from local officials, and tell our story to the media. It is part emergency communications exercise, part open house, and part educational outreach opportunity. Make the most of it!

With the peak of Solar Cycle 25 happening now, it could be a Field Day of legends. Don’t miss it.

ARRL LOGBOOK OF THE WORLD DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE JUNE 27 2025

“As a part of the ongoing modernization of the ARRL systems infrastructure, LoTW will be receiving major upgrades to the operating system it is running on, the relational database system it uses to store and access logbook and awards data, and server hosting, where it will be fully migrated to the cloud. These changes will, among other improvements, ensure LoTW performance needs can be better met based on user demand.
LoTW will be unavailable from June 27 to July 2, 2025, to complete these upgrades. We will bring LoTW back online if it is available sooner than July 2.”