Today I volunteered as part of a group of ham radio operators from the Appleton, Wisconsin Fox Cities Amateur Radio Club that provided ham radio communications support for the 2010 Appleton, Wisconsin area MS Walk. I was surprised twice during the event…
On a normal morning my wife, Jane (kd8krs) and I go to church and then have lunch and do projects or watch a Packer game in the afternoons. This Sunday Jane went to church while I went to participate in this communications support event. It was a dark, dreary, cold, VERY windy day with heavy rain. The rain drops were so big and were driven by the wind so hard that when they hit the windshield of the car it made me wonder if they had some slushy snow in them. But it was a bit too warm for that. I’m not sure what the wind-chill was, but I was glad that I was going to be sitting in a nice warm car for the event.
Before I went to the event I checked my e-mail and listened to my police scanner for any 2 meter repeater traffic. I wondered if the race would be cancelled since the conditions were so bad. It wasn’t as far as I could tell. So I went to the school where we were scheduled to meet. I soon found droves of people showing up for the event. Brave souls I thought…
We each were given maps and assignments and I soon departed for my spot. I had a good location – it was along the long leg back to the starting location. One of my assigned tasks was to report when the main body of walkers passed my location so the cooks would know when to get the lunch food out and be ready for the walkers when they finished.
The winds this day were at least 30 mph at times. And the heavy rains did not stop. To my surprise, neither did the brave walkers. Hundreds of them! I honestly was surprised how many brave souls seemed to think absolutely nothing of the weather – all to raise money for those in need.
The other thing that surprised me was how chilled a person in a nicely wind and rain protected car could get after sitting for more than an hour or so… The warm lunch at the end of the event was a really nice gesture by the race sponsors. It sure tasted good and helped warm me up!
As for ham radio operations, I had participated in a number of nets over the years and so I felt comfortable operating in this networked environment. It also helped to polish my skills should I need to use them in more serious times like during Skywarn severe weather nets or worse – after a severe weather event.
I wondered, in the morning, if the effort would be worth it on such a lousy weather day. To my surprise, it very much was! My personal reward, other than the good warm lunch, was a personal thank you from a family member of one of the walkers. She took the time to thank me for the support as I walked in to the commons area of the high school where the lunch was being served. That gave me a good feeling that I had helped a large group of people in some small way to accomplish their goal of helping those in need.
It was a good day!
Stay Radio Active!
Jon, AB9NN
http://www.HamRadioResources.com
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