4 POTA activations in 2 weekends – A W5RRR Saga

Lake Livingstone State Park US-3028 Sheldon Lake State Park US-3056 Brazos Bend State Park US-2992 San Jacinto State Park US-3511 by Jayant KG5LJZ This web page is about a fascinating two weekends that we had in November 2025 where we decided to activate a series of parks on the air using digital modes and some … Read more…

2 POTA Activations by 3 JSCARC Members (addendum)

Hey Dave & all, A few more pics and details.   In addition to activating Brazos Bend State Park on Saturday, Nov 1st, over the past 3 days, I activated 4 parks; Palmetto State Park (US-3045), Lockhart State Park (US-3033), Bastrop State Park (US-2986), and Buescher State Park (US-2993).     My wife and I departed … Read more…

2 POTA Activations by 3 JSCARC Members

This past Friday and Saturday, Oct 31 and Nov,  2  POTA activations by successfully deployed by Dan KG5PVP, John AB5SS and David KB5PGY. Dan, our roving member who lives mostly in Troy, Montana but part-time in Houston, successfully activated from US 4505 at the Kootenai National Forest, Montana on Friday. Dan KG5PVP (@ Kootenai National … Read more…

KG5URA Teaches Morse Code

Despite the government shutdown which has shuttered our regular JSCARC/Student Ham Radio schedule, David KG5URA is hosting a Morse Code study hall event to keep some of our interns engaged with our hobby. David has sought and received special no-charge teaching modules from Stan K7SBF at the Long Island CW Club (LICW) for special use … Read more…

Girl Scout Troop 140117

Girl Scout Troop 140117 Visits W5RRR A terrific group of scouts and leaders/moms visited our JSCARC W5RRR shack on Monday Oct 20.  Hosting the scouts were Jeff AB4ME, Kelvin K5KGH, David KB5PGY and Dave W5OC. We tooks the opportunity to show them an excellent ARRL video, “what is ham radio”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDn-6SDxyD4 followed by an excellent … Read more…

KG5LJZ/AB5SS POTA Activation of Sheldon Lakes

The intrepid duo Jayant KG5LJZ and John AB5SS activated Sheldon Lake State Park POTA on October 7, Sunday. AB5SS callsign netted 27 QSOs.  KG5LJZ made his first ~2W QRP QSO on CW using John’s Elecraft KX1 transceiver.  Soapbox from Jayant KG5LJZ Beautiful Parks on the Air (POTA) Sunday at the Sheldon Lakes State Park US-3056 … Read more…

Belton Hamfest Oct 4, 2025

Belton Oct 4, 2025 A beautiful day for Texas’ best hamfests at Belton this Saturday.  We had a good spotting of JSCARC members: Tom N3LLL, George AD5CQ, Jerry N5FWB, Tyler KJ5MCS, Keith KG5HOK, and Dave W5OC.  Perhaps some more that I didn’t see? In general, the equipment for sale were mostly a good variety of … Read more…

Interns Kickoff with Soldering Practice     

4 Student Interns from the JSC Student Ham Radio Committee attended a JSCARC sponsored Soldering 101 class held in the W5RRR shack. This is the first time we’ve conducted this class in the shack vs the adjacent Scuba room.  Why move?  We typically have many obstacles to temporarily clear out in the Scuba room and … Read more…

Visit from JSC Intern and UH ARC Students

Both the new JSC Fall Semester Student Ham Radio committee and the University of Houston ARC Students attended a JSCARC visit on Sept 24. Jeff AB4ME, Chris W5HOO, and Dave W5OC were the JSCARC hosts for the meeting which involved a presentation in the Gilruth MARS room and then a walk to the W5RRR shack … Read more…

AB5SS-163 high duration aloft ballooning

The JSCARC club is fortunate to have a ham radio balloonist of great acclaim- John Maca AB5SS.  John has been experimenting, developing, participating and deploying ham radio trackers and sensors on balloons for over 30+ years. As previously posted, he spearheaded our first JSC student intern balloon project for Summer 2025 interns.  One of the … Read more…