Okay, it’s time to unveil the full length, 140 minutes, runners video that we took at Mile Marker #4 on Camden Street. It has minimal editing, mostly to add titles at the front / back, and a running date / location stamp during the video. All sound is original once the video portion begins. (The video file itself was more than 2gb in size, and it was only 640×480 screen size.)
I’ll be posting more info about the race itself, who the volunteers were from AARO and other ham volunteers, etc., in another post.
This post is just for the runners. This is the view from Mile Marker #4 on November 11, 2012, starting around 7:45am, after all the bicycle riders are gone. You can see the approaching lead vehicles, watch the guy and my son, David KD5MTJ, relocate the mile marker and clock closer to the curb, and hear all the spectator comments (uncensored) in the background. The video with the bicycle riders is found here http://sanantoniohams.org/blog/?p=6394
The music from my van was from my laptop computer, connected to a 50 watt PA system (running on DC power, Pyle brand), hooked up to 5 speakers (a 50 watt bullhorn from Radio Shack, and 4 – 200 watt marine speakers (also made by Pyle). You could hear those speakers for blocks away. Runners started dancing to the music as they passed by, especially if I played the Saturday Night Fever song.
I had two of those huge, 120 pound, monster sized, batteries that Greg N5XO had obtained for us, rated at 155 amp hours each, hooked in series to give me (in theory) 310 amp hours of 12 volt power.
I used a voltage booster from Grumpyshop.net (our own local Gary WF5Y) that ensured my voltage never dropped below 13.5 volts even at the end of the day.
I had one of the inline battery charger circuits designed by Bob K5AUW to allow my van’s alternator to charge the batteries and provide power to the radio, lights and accessories while the motor was running.
I had one of PowerWerx voltage cut-off boxes APO3 inline between my car battery and the charging circuit, to ensure that I wouldn’t have a dead car battery at the end of the day.
I was running white strobes on the front, yellow strobes on the back, dual rotating amber light bars on the roof, plus the normal 4-way flashers, whenever I was driving on or near the course. Sure made it easier to get the police to let me thru the barricades with minimal muss and fuss. You can see the lights if you watched my other video posted yesterday, for the Bike Tour portion of this year’s Rock and Roll Marathon.
I’ll be putting together another video taken from Mile Marker #14 & the 20.5 mile marker (between 20 and 21 obviously), where the course doubled back upon itself, and runners were going both ways. I relocated my van, the music and my camera down to that position after closing down #4 earlier in the day.
