In amateur radio, a big deal is made out of providing emergency communications. While emergency communications are certainly important, that’s not the only way to provide public service. Yesterday, our club, ARROW, provided communications for the Ann Arbor Bicycle Touring Society‘s One Helluva Ride.
It all went pretty smoothly, despite some repeater troubles and programming difficulties. Here are the hams I counted (by callsign): AC8ES, AC8TO, K9TRV, KB6NU, KD6HWF, KD8PIJ, KD8TBT, KE8DDB, KE8DDR, KE8JOI, N8SBE, W8AYN, W8EMV, W8SFC, W8VWY, WB8TKL, WD8ELM, and WD8RWI. In addition, we had an unlicensed U-M student volunteer to help out. (Thanks, Faye, for driving her!)
We only had one serious incident. Apparently, one of the riders got his wheel stuck in a pothole, and because he was riding in a pack, when he went down, several other riders went down as well. Two of the riders were taken to the hospital, but I don’t think that any of the injuries were life-threatening. Other than that, there were perhaps a dozen mechanical failures, and we sagged a couple of riders who didn’t feel that they could make it all the way.
Notably, we had six new participants this year: W8EMV, KE8DDR, W8SFC, KE8JOI, WD8ELM, and the UM student. I think that this is another indication of how important it is to not only teach classes and get more people licensed, but also get them involved in activities such as this. Without them, this event would have been much tougher.
We also had a Ham Radio 101 incident. At the beginning, we had intended to use only the WD8IEL (Chelsea) repeater. When the coverage proved less than optimal, we began also using the N8DUY (Washtenaw County RACES) repeater. At the net control station, we were using a mag mount antenna stuck to the metal wall of the fairground building that we were located near. As such, it was horizontally polarized.
That worked just fine for the Chelsea repeater as the repeater was less than a mile from our location. That didn’t work out quite so well for communicating via the RACES repeater, which was approximately 15 miles away. The solution was to yank it off the wall and plop it onto the roof of a nearby vehicle. Problem solved.
Anyway, it was a great event overall. If your club isn’t doing something like this, you should really consider doing so. One benefit could be more members. The young UM student was so impressed by amateur radio, that she’s now interested in getting her license!