I thought that might get your attention! 🙂
BikeMS Valero 2009 Ride To The River is needing a few more reliable hams to serve as police shadows during the upcoming BikeMS event on October 3rd and 4th. You get to ride in the front (passenger) seat of a police patrol car for this 2 day event, operating your ham radio and passing instructions to/from the officer via Ham Radio Net Control.
All BikeMS volunteers must pass a background check for criminal and driving records, but you won’t want to volunteer to get in your assigned patrol car if you have outstanding warrants, or the 2 day trip might get longer. Fortunately for us, the majority of hams in our area don’t generally worrry about warrants, since they tend to keep their noses clean (legal wise at least). I don’t personally know of any hams that would be affected by this background check.
What would you need in order to volunteer?
A mobile ham radio with external mag mount antenna would be preferred. Cigarette lighter power plugs are available, the officers apparently tend to frown upon us popping the hood to start connecting mystery (to them) wires to their battery. Dual Band radios are more useful than single band, but the primary net will be conducted on VHF 2 meters, so if that’s all you have available, don’t let it stop you from volunteering.
You will have to pass the online background check. No pre-study or memorization needed. That info will be provided if you chose to volunteer, so we won’t post that link here.
Contact Curtis N5QPN direct at 210-316-7042 or via email at crabenaldt@sprint.blackberry.net
This is a time urgent matter, since it can take up to 2 weeks for the background check to be completed, even though it only took you less than 4-5 minutes to fill in the info.
