San Antonio Hams

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.

Communications was better than ever this year. We didn’t have any hams in the Supply Trucks, but thanks to Jeff N5MNW, we got APRS units (borrowed from MS150) into the 4 primary trucks so we could track them both days. We kept the San Marcos Net Control Station live on Sunday until about 2:30pm, allowing more flexibility on the course by the stations to choose which repeater they could best contact us on. We also had use of the commercial radio HT’s from Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) which had great coverage on Day 2, but not so great coverage on Day 1 (at least not the first half closer to SA).

Special Thanks Go To Randall Scharmen and Sterling “Sleepyhead” Scharmen KE5KZE, otherwise known as “SAG 3” on the air, for service above and beyond.  They drove a van load of riders back from San Marcos to the San Antonio Start Line on Saturday night after 9pm, returning to SM around midnight.  Despite a reported death over night in their family, they both got up before the chickens,  ready for another full day of SAG’ing riders up the course. Sterling even sent a text message to San Marcos Net Control around 5:45am Sunday saying he and his father both “wanted to finish the job they started.”    At the end of the day, they transported another final load of riders back from Austin to San Antonio.  Randall (Sterling’s father) was heard to say on Saturday night, that he might decide to get his ham radio license and wanted to know when the next big event (BikeMS) would be.

We transported by ambulance at least 3 injured riders on Day 1, and either 1 or 2 riders on Day 2, plus one volunteer who got injured at the Short Route Rest Stop on Day2.  We used all 4 White SAG vans plus the 5 Toyota Trucks as regular SAG’s both days, and other duties as assigned later in the day. Once again, having our units coordinated closely by radio saved the day!

Here is a list of over 80+ hams who volunteered this weekend, (66 on day 1 alone) and please forgive me if there were any typoes. Let me know if there are any mistakes or missing names, and I’ll get this posting updated ASAP.  I know there a few at the Day 2 Austin Finish Line who aren’t on my list here. 

Everybody went above and beyond in the performance of their assigned duties, with very little or no grumbling heard regarding the ham portion of the operations.

Following the list of ham operators / ham volunteers will be a small collection of photos taken by myself.  I’ve added some brief captions below each thumbnail.  I wasn’t able to take as many photos as I normally tend to do, so if anyone else wants to submit their photos like last year, please contact me via email or phone (210-771-7075)  to arrange it to happen.

Two Day Mobile Assignments:

• SAG Shuttle 1 – McQueeny SAG
  – Danny McCarty WA5KRP – (RS 5 to Finish)
• SAG Shuttle 2 – New Braunfels SAG
  – Gary Tangrady K5GST (RS 7 to Finish)
• SAG Shuttle 3 – San Marcos Shuttle
  – Sterling Scharmen KE5KZE & Randall Schmarmen (San Marcos)
• SAG Shuttle 4 – San Marcos Shuttle
  – Frank Rohm KE5IJS & Ryan Rohm (San Marcos)
• SAG #5 (Personal Truck) – Jeff Walters KE5FGA – Floater / troubleshooter assignment as needed.
• Toyota Truck #1 – Scott Reeves KT5SR
• Toyota Truck #2 – Ray Mueller AE5HN
• Toyota Truck #3 – Darrell Kirk KC5JAR & Susan Shirk KB5ICO
• Toyota Truck #4 – David Rice KE5LOU
• Toyota Truck #5 – Paul Fenrich KA5FZU

Motorcycle Safety Marshals (Some only worked 1 day)

• Ray  McLeaird KE5KHN
• John Perry KE5PRE
• Dennis Thompson KE5MWN
• Paul Tarter KE5TDO
• Michael Pérez W5ZAP
• Jorge Patiño KC5RY
• Charles Mielak K3VIC
• Dexter Lewis KB5JTJ
• Ed Driscoll  NE5N
• Curtis Pietsch KE5AOQ
• Fred Roberts KE5MTL
• Shawn McAlpine KF5AVE
• Richard Watson KE5ZTO
• Peter van Wijk KE5MSB
• Daryl Mai W5MAI
• Don Kirchner W5DK (The M & M with the goofy video camera on his helmet)
• Lloyd Harmon K5LWH
• Ray Evans, Sr. KE5TZY 
• David Algarin    
• Albert Davis    
• Andre Ebaben    
• Charles Fleming     
• Henrietta McClintock
• Keith  McClintock 
• Russell Minor
• Cooper Smyth 
• Manuel Tarin 
• Mark Trevino
• Charlie Williamson 
• Jean Williamson
• Ray Wolford
• Paul Scott 

Day 1 Static Assignments: Estimated Times in ( )

• Start Line in San Antonio �
  – Janet Rivers KE5ZUC, Garnet Robinson KE5WRI, Tony Saucedo KE5ZUP (6:45am – 12pm)
• Finish Line in San Marcos
  – Lee Besing N5NTG, Louis Upton K1STX, Al Fields KE6LGE, Jeff Schmidt N5MNW (6:30am – 5pm?)
• Rest Stop Family Ride Loop 1604
  – Lothar Harris K5LEH, Earlene Harris K5DEH (7am – 11am)
• Rest Stop – 1 Side of Evans Rd
  – Dale Robinson KB5YSJ, Linda Robinson KC5QPQ (7am – 9am)
• Rest Stop – 2 Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church Evans Rd near IH-35
  – Bob Rodriguez K5AUW (7am – 10am)
• Rest Stop – 3 Goerke’s Country Tavern Weil Rd before Santa Clara Rd.
  – Joe Thompson W4CTH (7am – 10am)
• Rest Stop – 4 Luensmann’s Bar, 8810 FM 775, New Berlin, TX
  – John Trigg W5KX0, Susan Trigg KE5MHF, Maggie Trigg KE5MHQ, Patrick Trigg (7:30am – 1pm)
• Rest Stop – 5 Road Side Hwy 90 & 725
  – Ed Ringgold N5LVQ (8am – 2pm) SAG-Out Spot
• Rest Stop – 6 Barbarosa Bowling Club – McQueeny
  – David Espinoza W5QS (8:30am – 3pm)
• Rest Stop – 7 Memorial High School – New Braunfels
  – Gary Stock WF5Y (8am – 12:30pm) SAG-Out Spot
• Rest Stop – 8 Riley’s Tavern
  – Anthony Jackson KE5PWX (8:30am – 4pm)

Day 2 Static Assignments: Estimated Times in ( )

• Start Line in San Marcos
  – Lee Besing N5NTG,  Al Fields KE6LGE,  (6:30am – 2m?)
• Finish Line in Austin (all day)
  – Jeff Schmidt N5MNW coordinating Austin NCS Team (7am? – 4pm)
• Rest Stop – Short Route Rest Stop (SRRS) 1259 N. Old Stagecoach Rd
  – David Childress KD5MML (7am – 10am)
• Rest Stop – 1 Intersection:1979 and 621 where 50/80 route splits
  – David Smith KE5FGY (7am – 11am)
• Rest Stop – 2 Intersection: 20 and 3353 near Weinert
  – Anthony Jackson KE5PWX (8am – 11am)
• Rest Stop – 3 Hwy 20 & Political Rd
  – Phil Boggan KD5MMM (8am – 12pm)
• Rest Stop – 4 North of railroad on 2720, Near Lockhart
  – Jake Creamer K5GWC, Paul Kinney KD5VRU (8am – 1:30pm)
• Rest Stop – 5 Valero Gas Station
  – Keith Anderson KE5QLE, Bil Henson WB5SYS (9am – 3pm)
• Rest Stop – 6 Buda City Park – Buda
  – Scott McMullen W5ESE, Walter Aulenbacher WA5AU (9am – 4pm)

Here are the photos that I promised earlier…..  Click on any thumbnail to see larger view, then use your browser’s back button to return to this page. – Lee