Greater Houston Hamfest 2025 was this weekend in Rosenberg, TX. I made it out Saturday, was trying to make friday but got too busy with work calls.

The hamfest was much bigger than I expected. I drove out from Houston to Rosenberg, and had my APRS on for tracking, checked the map when I got back home, there were a ton of trackers there! Was pretty neat. I didn’t win any door prizes or the raffle, was hoping to win something.

There was a balloon launch scheduled for 9am, then got rescheduled a few times due to winds, but I left around 1230pm, and they launched them at 1pm. They launched 5, but I was able to find two, AB5SS-143 is well over Africa as of right now, and KG5BBF-140 is almost there. You can look them up on amateur.sondehubg.org if they’re still floating around, or look up other baloons.

KG5BFF-140 and AB5SS-143 Africa

I had a ton of stuff on my list to look for, got a few of them.

  • Decent Switching Power Supply - Grabbed an SS-25 Astron for a steal
  • 50ft coax - Grabbed some with an RF choke built in
  • Paddle - Got a Bencher BY-1 Paddle
  • Picked up a EFHW on a chalk line reel 20-6m 33ft. Pretty Neat!
  • USB GPS adapter, it was cheap, these are great for no wifi time sync
  • Dog Bone Insulators - needed a few of these, got some different types
  • Accidentally picked up a Kenwood TS-690S for a steal! Not sure what I’ll do with it yet, but excited to have an older radio to play with. Came with the printed service manual and an LDG tuner!

Met the guys from Cross Roads Ham Radio Club, which I’m a member of, and had a talk with them, they’re going to do a POTA activation day in Rockport, TX in April, I may go to that, or we may go up to Belton for another Ham Fest, not really sure which one yet, but I’ll post somewhere. I don’t see anything up on the website yet, seems they’re not updating often of events.

Had fun at the Hamfest, now I can’t wait for the next one, there are a few I might drive to:

In other news, I put a 20m dipole up and tried to talk to my buddy Ryan, who is about 30 miles to the north west of me, but we were unable to hear eachother, I just threw the dipole on my 7ft fence top, and he has a 20m dipole on his house eaves. I guess we just have too much ground loss. I’ve ordered a portable mast, and some more wire so I can get things up higher. I’m in an HOA and my backyard is maybe 14ft x 10ft, so I don’t have much space, even for ground radials if I needed to go that route. I think a steep sloper is going to be my best bet.

Fencetenna 20m dipole

I need to move, I need more space for antennas! I’ll make another post when I get some more stuff on the air, either the EFHW or some portable setup, or if I get the Kenwood working.