San Antonio Hams

This was the 39th annual Veterans Day parade in Universal City, Texas.    Hill Country REACT organized the hams to support this event, as they have for the past 20+ years.   But without the support of all the non-REACT member hams, this event would not have run as smoothly as it did.

Ham Operator volunteers manned barricades along the parade route, and at 10:15am, the call came over the radio to “put up your barricades, no traffic goes north on the parade route!”    About 5 minutes later, the call went out “stop all traffic on the parade route both directions!”   

Is that a UC PD car behind me?

Two of the UC Police cars had REACT members riding in them, and we had motorcycle marshals cruising the course along with UC PD motorcycle and bicycle police officers.   There were too many side parking lot exits to block them all, so periodically the call came on the radio “watch out for that red car going north from such and such location…”  or “this driver needs to get to work…” or “this driver didn’t know we were having a parade today…”

Our “job” today was not to argue with the drivers or spectators, but simply to inform them of what the UC PD had told us, and to ensure the barricades were in place on time.  We let the UC PD pull over those who wished to press the issue further.

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I found some more video footage from Halloween in Sattler, and just had to put some of it together.  There’s about a 25 second section that will raise your eyebrows, or at least it did ours when we first watched it happen live…

Untouched sound tracks, no music on this one, and a lot shorter than the first video.

Start/Finish Line at the Lodge

Where: Hill Country State Natural Area – Bandera County Texas

When: January 9 and 10th, 2010

What: Tejas Trails – Bandera 100k Ultra Marathon
This event is three races in one, a 25k, 50k and 100k that incorporates nearly every trail on the 5400 acres of Hill Country State Natural Area.

This is a unique situation to train and test EmComm abilities in a remote environment, provide a service, as well as enjoy the Texas Hill Country!

After a meeting with the Race Director during the Cactus Rose 100 this weekend, we have found that the population of this race is anticipated to increase substantially from the 549 last year.   A new sponsorship of the event, will be bringing in more out of state participants.  Expect up to 800 this year for the three different races!

Please read the following information carefully so you know what is happening, and what is expected of our ham volunteers…

Duties: This is a 24 hour all weather event! Amateur operators man the Aid Stations and duties are basically like any other bike or running event (BP150, MS150, River Safari, etc), relaying supply needs, runner counts and times, and coordinating the Horse Patrol for SAR operations!  Operators support Race Control, Aid Stations and the HCSNAP Coordinated Horse Patrol! We are encouraging everyone to actually set-up stations within the Aid Station tent, or within a few feet.  Most Aid stations are situated in a manner, to which we could attach and additional EZ-up type canopy to facilitate station set-up! Operators will be required to stay in constant touch with the Aid Station Captain, in order to keep the Database up-to-date.

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Just received three dozen photos taken during the 2009 BikeMS Valero Alamo Ride to the River event on October 3rd, from Joe KA1MZY, the guy who helped provide us with some of the video footage that we incorporated into the long feature length video (33 minutes).   His YouTube.com ID is “Texas700” and I encourage you to check out his videos…

Here are his photos, mostly from BP#2, BP#4 and Lunch BP…

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I’ve finally completed the promised full length video that covers both days of the 2009 Valero Alamo Ride to the River, from start to finish.  

This video includes footage from 1 other ham, Joe KA1MZY, used to fill in some gaps where I was unable to be in two places at one time.  It contains “live, unedited” audio tracks from the ham radio featuring traffic between SAG vans and with Net Control.

I also knew that I had “skipped” taking photos at BP #1 and BP #3 for some reason.   So I found some photos from the LaVernia United Methodist Church’s website for BP #3 (they were the host location for the BP) and have included a few of them in the video.

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One View of the 2009 BikeMS: Ride to the River

By Milton Johnson – N5HMJ

The structure of the BikeMS Amateur Radio volunteers has changed over the last two years, without really changing.  What does that mean?  

In 2008, the final year of the Bike to the Beach, we had 81 Amateur Radio Volunteers not counting the Motor Marshalls who have their own organizational structure.  This year we had 64 volunteers.  Any school of management will tell you that a group that big is too large to effectively manage. 

Fortunately, the group has informally functioned around teams, and beginning last year we formalized the teams with team leaders which this year broke down as follows:

• Breakpoint Team: Bob Rodriguez-K5AUW;
• Net Control Team: Shane O’Neal-NS5D;
• Safety Team: Curtis Rabenaldt-N5QPN;
• Medical Team: Neil Martin-WA5FSR;
• Officials & Logistics Team: Alfred Horn-KG5QW;
• SAG Team: Gordon Dial-K5SUZ and Milton Johnson-N5HMJ. 

Coordinating and organizing these teams was the task of KG5QW, K5SUZ and N5HMJ. 

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I did a quick search on YouTube.com for MS150 and 2009 Valero Ride to the River, 2009 BikeMS, etc. and found lots of videos shot during our event by hams and participants. Below are a collection of some of the better ones I found.

Search for videos by Texas700, 33Chuey, and MrRamosDesigns. These three seemed to have lots of videos from our event. 🙂

Enjoy!

This video (4:52) was shot by Texas700 from BP #3 on Day 1

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More videos follow….

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Some of the crazier hams like to be Motorcycle Marshals on the BikeMS events, and Don W5DK, found a way to mount a camera on his helmet while he rode his Honda Goldwing during the event.  This 5 1/2 minute bit of footage was taken during the storm toward the end of the course on Saturday.   You can see the rain coming down hitting him and the camera, and see the lightening strikes zapping the camera.   The first minute or so has no sound, but the rest of it has the sound of the rain and motorcycle noise.

Thanks Don and the rest of the M&M’s for being out there with us making the event safer for all the participants!

Here is Don’s original version…

…and here is the version I “fixed up” for him afterward…

Here is the video you’ve all be waiting for. The video is about 9 minutes in length, with some narration and sound tracks left untouched.  Some titles added to explain what is going on, or to inform the viewer about all the work the ham radio operators are doing.   Would have liked to have included some photos or video of the ground to air lightening strikes at the Finish line, but we’re working with what I shot myself.

I inserted only a few still photos in the video, but not many, so if you want to see the photos, please visit the earlier posting made to this blog.  I’m willing to post more photos taken by other hams, if they send them to me.  <hint, hint>

Here is the video, courtesy of YouTube.com where it is hosted.

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In the beginning there was a plan, and the plan was deemed good!   Then Mother Nature decided to change the plans, and that’s where the flexibility and training of the BikeMS ham radio operators came into play.

My original assignment was to be SAG7 and supervise 3 other SAG vans (SAG #2, #14 & #25) for special duty between the Day 1 Start Line at the Alamo Dome and the entrance to Ft. Sam Houston base.   When that was done, we were to pop up to Sattler, TX and get staged  for the River Road segment of the route.

I was not originally supposed to be the “Turtle” bringing up the rear, but due to last minute changes on the route, the ham (Lyle KB5BSU) who was supposed be “Turtle” after marking the course with signs, got busy relocating signs to mark the new route and never made it back to the Alamo Dome in time for the start.  Then the Safety Officer declared River Road to be unsafe due to flooding in the area, and closed that segment of the route completely, shutting down BP6, 7 and 8 in the process.  (BP6 and 8 were actually the same BP, but rider were to pass thru twice.)

So that is how SAG 7 became the defacto “Turtle” to bring up the rear of the bike riders.  We had quite a few riders ride past the Alamo itself, only to decide they really didn’t want to ride in the rain all that much.  So they poised for photos of themselves in front of the Alamo, called their friends to come pick them up, and the Turtle moved on, looking for more riders needing help.    SAG #14 found a rider under the bridge at Broadway and IH-35 needing a flat changed, and SAG #25 picked up a couple of riders asking to be taking direct to BP1 for bike repairs.  SAG #2 decided to turn left into the base, instead of right to go around the base, but fortunately for him, the guard decided to let him and his wife drive their SAG van thru the base instead of shooting them instead. 🙂   

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