N5NTG | 
06 6th, 2009| 
I wish to thank all of those hams who came out to help us the other weekend with the Annual Tour de Cure for the American Diabetes Association. We had approximately 1,700 registered riders this year, almost a 50% increase over 2008’s event.
Erika Bayless, the San Antonio ADA Tour de Cure Director, had this to say about this year’s event:
Whoo-hoo! We made it! What a fantastic weekend– it was long hours, hard work and lost sleep, but in the end we had 1,700 cyclists register and we have raised over ½ million for the American Diabetes Association’s mission. Job well done! The ADA staff could NOT have done it without you all. ADA volunteers are the backbone to reaching the numbers that we do in South Central Texas. Please take the week to reflect on what a difference you have made in the lives of the over 23 million Americans with diabetes and how the dollars we raised will help others like our Youth Ambassadors, Greg and Colby. Thank you.
Once again, we depended heavily upon the GVARC 147.000 ham radio repeater on both days for our primary net. We ran net control on Saturday out of San Marcos using Al Fields KE6LGE’s excellent RV. Al & Louis Upton K1STX were our initial net control stations, later supplemented by Jeff Schmidt N5MNW who also set up the APRS tracking system for us. The 147.000 repeater covered all the way from San Antonio north past San Marcos to just the other side of Kyle, Texas. Only one rest stop reported difficulties hitting the 147.o00, and that was the rest stop nearest Buda, TX, closer to Austin, which used the Austin 146.94 repeater instead.
