San Antonio Hams

Today’s Small Texan Triathlon was sponsored / organized by Britton Bikes of San Antonio, TX, and had 137 entries.   

The route included a swim (actual distance was 1480 meters) in the Boerne City Lake (just north of Boerne, TX), a 45k bike ride that went north up thru Waring, TX, and back, and a 10k run that went over the dam behind the lake cross-country, then out on Ranger Creek Road to a turn-around point and back to the park. 

There was just enough water left in the lake (which is also used for Boerne’s water supply) for them to swim, once the swimmers waded out about 30′ from shore.  The swim route was altered from the planned 1500 meter course due to shallow waters in the lake. We had joked about whether “mud wrestling” qualified for a USAT sanctioned triathlon (it doesn’t). 

The event organizers had “swimmer helpers” waiting out in the water at the finish shore when the swimmers returned, to help the tired swimmers change from a horizontal swim position, to walking upright once more on the rocky / muddy bottom of the lake until they reached the concrete ramp. 

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Used my emergency go-kit today to run net control for the Small Texan Triathlon up in Boerne, TX. 

I took the photo (on right) while standing on the back ramp of the race director’s trailer used for running net control during this event.  I’ll post a separate blog entry with my photos from today’s event.  We were on the air from 7am until about 12:30pm for the event that had 137 entries.  1480 meter swim, 45k bike ride, 10k run, certified course.  Temp only got up to the low 90’s by the time we shut down net control, but we also had a fine light breeze, enough to keep us cool inside the trailer, but not strong enough to bother the athletes.

Using this go-kit with the bigger external antenna wWas perhaps a bit “over-kill” in terms of my actual needs since the 2 meter repeater we used was full scale on an HT antenna, but as I told one of the other hams, the big antenna in the air and the rolling toolbox with radios looks more impressive to the (non-ham) event organizers or other spectators.  I was able to charge 2 of my HT batteries using the DC-AC 300w power converter just to do it.  Didn’t actually need the extra batteries or HT’s charged, but I wanted a real life test.

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