Yesterday, I participate in a public service event and have a few observations. The event was called “Touch a Truck,” and the idea behind the event was to get kids and their parents out to see all the trucks, and coincidentally, be introduced to a variety of social services available to parents. ARROW, our amateur radio club here in Ann Arbor, was asked to help out with crowd control and parking.
Here are some observations:
- I was very disappointed at the turnout by our club members. Despite plenty of notice and repeated pleas by our public service officer, only seven hams showed up. We should have been able to do a lot better than that. It wasn’t a long event; we were done by noon.
- I violated one of the cardinal rules of public service operation and didn’t bring the manual for my HTs. Since the event was happening in a relatively small area—the parking lot of a local high school and a few parking lots less than a half mile away—we used simplex operation. Well, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to get my Wouxoun KG-UVD1P into VFO mode. Fortunately, I’d also brought my Baofeng UV-5RA. The UV-5RA has a V/M button which switches the radio between modes. Needless to say that I used the Baofeng instead of the Wouxoun.
- The good thing is that I had a backup radio, so not knowing how to set up the Wouxoun didn’t put me off the air.
- I did remember to charge both radios for the event, and I had plenty of battery life for the entire event, which lasted from 8am til noon.
- For whatever reason, I chose not to put the belt clip on the Baofeng. I wish I had, though. Having a belt clip would have been more convenient. I’m going to have to find the box the radio came in and install the clip.
- Orange vests! When one of our club members suggested that we buy some orange vests for events such as these, I was a bit dubious. Well, I’ve completely changed my mind on this now that I’ve used one. At this event, we were each issued an orange vest, and they really did the job. I think that they gave us a little bit of authority, and they certainly made us more visible.
- Overall, we did a good job. Because there was just enough parking for the event, we were able to make that run more smoothly. Instead of people driving around looking for spots, we were able to efficiently direct them to the spots that were available.
- Our communications also helped getting the trucks, who were part of the main event, into the right parking spaces.
- Overall, it was a successful public service event for ARROW.
When I got home, the first thing that I did was look at the quick reference card for the Wouxoun. The way to switch between frequency (VFO) mode and channel (memory) mode is to hit the MENU button, then the TDR button. Hopefully, next time I won’t forget that.
Dave, N8SBE says
MENU/TDR (whatever TDR means) to swap between memory and VFO mode doesn’t strike me as very intuitive.
As far as volunteer help, please remember that volunteers are strictly that — volunteers.
No one should be pushed or shamed into volunteering, no matter how much the organizer(s) feel that it is an important event (to them, at least).
While I’m on this subject, I’ll also posit that organizations like Tour for the Cure, etc. are fund-raising events (non-profit status or no), and even though organizations like that live off of volunteer help supposedly to keep their expenses down (on https://www.charitywatch.org/home you can find out just how much of your donation actually makes it to the charity you think you are supporting), I find it annoying to be bombarded by requests for help that may or may not even be tangentially related to our primary role as communicators, to help some other organization raise funds. If they have a budget for their fund-raising (which I’m sure they do), maybe it could include some commercial radios they could ship around the country for their various events. Organizations like these also do things like pressure photo/videographers to work for free, or barring that they just steal their work and act surprised when they are sued for copyright infringement.
One can argue all day about whether it’s for a “good cause” or not (remember that everyone will see this through their own particular ‘filter’), but every potential volunteer needs to make up their minds for themselves as to whether they will participate or not.
Aside from the above considerations, there may be a host of other reasons for low turnout. Not every one in an organization is as enthusiastic about certain things as others.
Viva la difference!