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Ham Radio and Marathons

September 20, 2009

First – why does this ham radio operator volunteer his lovely Saturday to work at a race?  Well, it starts with the idea that I have a particular skill.  Use of that skill can help others.  And, I can learn and grow through continued use of this skill in various ways.  I did this with my skill as a ski racer, such as it was back in the day, by volunteering for the National Ski Patrol and doing Red Cross first aid training.  I also volunteered to be a race coach for children.  Now I use my skills with radio communications in radio networks (we call them “nets”) to help others.  And in doing so, I continue to learn and bring fresh interest to my hobby.

A recent experience as the net control ham radio operator gave me some good insights into a skill set that can be called upon during ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) operations.  The skill set is to report to a hectic environment with radios and antennas that I had not operated before and to work with people that I had not worked with before.  The objective – pass communications as requested.  In an emergency, this could be damage reports, reports of injuries, reports of equipment and supplies needed, coordination with damage surveyors, etc..

The day was a long one.  Not as many hams volunteered to help as we had hoped for.  So AB9NN volunteered for a double shift.   Or, more honestly, was asked to take a second shift after his first one and then said “fine…”.  This taught me a good lesson – come prepared to put in a long hard day and do it with a smile on your face.  Races, like emergencies, may not be as convenient as we may like them to be.  For me, this day was from about 5:30 am (leaving home) to 2 pm (returning home).  I chose not to try to eat lunch – the pace of the communications dictated that.

Net control operations are rewarding but they can be hectic.  For example, we had to deal with multiple levels of injuries, placement of personnel, requests for transportation, requests for status reports on runners, etc..  Even a request from a Mom wondering if her daughter was OK and would she need her inhaler…  At some times, it came down to prioritizing one call in front of another because of the serious nature of the prioritized call.  Life in the corporate world served me well in that regard.  I am sure other experiences could be drawn upon in instances such as these.

I learned flexibility in use of radio gear.  Operating two radios at once was a new experience for me.  One radio was used to communicate with the hams out along the race course.  A repeater was used for that.  Interestingly, my wife Jane (kd8krs) was able to listen in from the Traverse City, MI area!  The second radio was used to communicate with two other stations that coordinated with race and emergency management (police, rescue, etc) personnel.  It worked well once I got used to it.  Except for one thing.  Our ARES trailer and antenna was located too close to one of the other antennas.  Thus, communications were not clear.  I overcame this through the use of my HT (handy talkie or walkie talkie for non-hams).  Sometimes less IS more!

We did have one person that was not known to any of us – just assumed a post and did a pretty good job actually.  But what would have been much better would be for this ham to have participated in the pre-race meetings so that he would have been known to the rest of the team.  The operative word is “team” – not individual hero.

Another problem at these sorts of events is the person that is assigned to one location because of agreement with race officials.  And then this person decides that his / her main function is not really radio communications but rather to help race personnel in one way or another.  While this is a nice idea, we rely on our people to monitor events and communicate.  Sometime boring, sometimes rewarding.  The point being – a person off doing other things is not really paying attention to their main function.  I am a believer in the ICS (Incident Command System) method.  That teaches that we are at the event for radio communications.  And that must be our primary task.  This does not mean that we should be shy about communicating good ideas for consideration.  BUT – we should ask permission and not just exercise independent action.

Enough for this post…  on to other things!

Stay Radio Active!

Jon Kreski, AB9NN

http://www.HamRadioResources.com

http://www.Twitter.com/AB9NN

AB9NN-9 ON aprs

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