Mar 18

Saturday was one of the first organized ADA Tour de Cure Rider Rallys scheduled for the 2012 event.  The event started on the south side of San Antonio at the Texas A&M Campus on Gillette, just north of Palo Alto College with aproximately 156 riders registered.  Rally Riders had a choice of 3 routes, a 15 mile (out & back), 32 mile or 53 mile.  

APRS Tracking of SAG #2

As you can see from the screen shot to your right that shows the APRS tracking from N5NTG-9, the bottom section shows the route.  We’ve put a marker at the split for the 32/53 mile route on the image, along with a few notes.   My van was SAG #2, N5NTG-9, and we covered primarily the longer route, but did a lot of back tracking & delivery of riders who couldn’t finish.

We had 2 SAG vehicles, one driven by David Sloan, the other driven by Lee Besing N5NTG.  Riders had a choice of taking SAG #1 or SAG #2 this weekend. 🙂    SAG #2 had APRS tracking active all day (see above notes) and worked mostly the longer route, while SAG #1 worked the shorter route (and kept much busier because only about 1/3 of the riders rode the longer route).   

 We had 13 Motorcycle Safety Marshals for this event, with about half of them being hams.  We ran a short informal net (no net control per se) for the event, and never asked that the repeater we used (STARS 146.66) be closed for our exclusive use that morning.

The ride kicked off at 8:30am, and the last rider didn’t finish until nearly 1:30pm.  No accidents were reported needing medical care, although we had several riders with blown tires, or other mechanical failures that needed to be SAG’d into finish.

One of the “fun” things I got to do in SAG #2, was have Alex from KSAT 12 TV ride with me, taking photos of the various riders along the route, and some video.  He’s going to create a 30 second promo video for the Tour de Cure event to be shown on TV.

The big ride, the South Texas Tour de Cure, is on Saturday, May 19th, starting in Boerne, TX, with four (4) routes available.  The two longer routes go north of Boerne, the two shorter rides go south toward Fair Oaks Ranch.  Many more Hams are needed for this big event, to cover Break Points, drive SAG Vans, shadow event officials, etc.  Contact Lee N5NTG at info@sanantoniohams.org or call 210-771-7075 (voice / text).

Here are some photos from the March 17th Rider Rally…. Read the rest of this entry »

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Mar 13

Spring is in the air, and our calendar list of events is springing into action.  We’ll eventually get all of these posted to the actual calendar, but here is the quick and dirty listing of the next few major public service events where Hams are needed here in the Central / South Texas area.

FYI – This is our 500th article posted on San Antonio Hams!  Yay!

  • March 25th – Tall Texan Triathlon (Boerne), 1 day event.  Participants swim in Boerne City Lake, ride their bikes 56 miles (route thru Waring), and run 12 miles.  Hams needed at checkpoints / rest stops on the ride and run portion of the route, no need to get your radio wet in the lake.  Gordon Dial K5SUZ coordinating. Contact him by phone (only) at 210-410-9518. No email.
  • March 25th – Capitol 10K Race & Fun Run- 35th Anniversary!  35th Anniversary – Sunday, March 25, 2012. Jeff Schmidt, N5MNW, coordinating. Contact Jeff at N5MNW@arrl.net
  • April 21-22nd – BPMS150 (Houston to Austin), 2 day event, arrive Friday night before to get free hotel room for SAG Hams.  Using dual band mobile radios (preferred) because some nets are on VHF (2 meter) and others on UHF.  Lee Besing, N5NTG, & Charlie Land, KC5NKK coordinating.  Contact Lee at 210-771-7075 or email info@sanantoniohams.org, Contact Charlie at 512-796-7565 or email at kc5nkk@hillcountryreact.org.
  • April 22nd – Wildflower 100 Bicycle Tour (San Antonio), 1 day event, start / end at Retama Park (IH-35 & 1604 area).  SAG Hams and Rest Stop Hams needed.  Gordon Dial K5SUZ coordinating.  Contact him by phone (only) at 210-410-9518.  No email.
  • May 5th – Central Texas Tour de Cure (Austin), 1 day event. Start / Finish at Travis Expo Center. 5 routes, many rest stop hams & SAG Hams needed, plus net control.  Using the Austin 146.94 repeater most likely.  Jeff Schmidt, N5MNW, coordinating.  Contact Jeff at n5mnw@arrl.net or Lee at info@sanantoniohams.org to volunteer.
  • May 19th – South Texas Tour de Cure (Boerne / San Antonio), 1 day event.  Start / Finish at Champion High School in Boerne, Texas.  5 routes, 8 rest stops, 8 SAG Hams (plus navigator), net control help, etc. Lee Besing, N5NTG, coordinating.  Contact Lee at info@sanantoniohams.org to volunteer.
  • June 9-10th – Texas Water Safari, multi-day event, but San Antonio hams usually only handle Day 1, way into the night on some locations.  http://www.texaswatersafari.org for info.  Eric Olson, WB5ZJQ, coordinating.  Contact Eric by email at wb5zjq@sarepeater.net to volunteer. Packet Radio used to transmit canoe numbers to other stations down the river.   Some positions are short (closer to start line), and others are mosquito bait (late into the night).  This event can be lots of fun, sort of a mini-Field Day event, combined with a picnic. Every location is different.
  • June 23-24th – Field Day Weekend.  We’ll be posting locations for the various organized ham clubs in the upcoming weeks, and for the unorganized ones as well.

See more details below for the BPMS150 and Tour de Cure events…

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