Twin City FM Club

While I am mor than happy to join in, I don't always find out about events that I am interested in until (at times) after the event has passed. In this case kc0tfb invited me to participate, and forwarded me the contact information necessary.

I woke up a little later than I wanted Sunday morning. (Rotating from night shift to day hours does take some work.) The hope was that any hams who had not already selected a rest stop to work, would go to the Lakeville High School, preferably arriving around 5:30. Since I woke up at 5:00 and had never been to the school before, that made things a bit interesting. I ended up there a little after 6:00 am, and got checked in.

Along the way I donated my APRS package to be used on one of the busses. We used APRS to allow the dispatcher to give rest stop people an idea of where along the route busse and sag wagons were located, to re-assure those in need that we did have people en-route.

I provided radio assistance for Sag Wagon 6, a 15 passenger van with a trailer for bikes. Jeff was my first driver, and Sara was our medic. As a group we made two runs around the first half of the 62 mile route. Basicly we took I35 down to the first Lonsdale/Northfield exit, and shot over to the Lonsdale Rest stop. We checked in and made sure that any riders who identified themselves as needing a lift back to the start, got that ride back. We then followed the route that riders on this route had taken to get there. The second time we made this run we made a count of the number of riders still on the route. This provided the rest stop operators with an idea of how many riders were still on their way in, as well as giving the race managers an idea of how things were proceding.

After two runs my initial driver and medic had other activities they needed to do, and I hung out at the school while they located another driver and medic.

When one of the riders who had completed the 33 mile route finished getting cleaned up, and checked in, it turned out that he was willing to be both a medic and our driver, so off we went again. This time we chased down to the second exit, and followed the race route back from where it crossed I-35 the second time back to Lonsdale. From there we ran back and forth to Montgomery a couple of times, then chased back one of the paths that riders had reportedly been taking out of Lonsdale as a bit of a shortcut to Northfield. We then stopped in to the Northfield rest stop, checked in, and made arangements for which sag wagon would head back to Lakeville immediately, which would stick around, and which would head back to Lonsdale.

After a bit of discussion, Sag 6 went back to Lonsdale, confirmed that that rest stop was closed up, then followed the route back to I-35. We picked up one of the last of the riders (third from the end) and headed back to Lakevile to turn him in, and check the van in. In ended up hanging around for an hour or so, waiting for one of the other vans to show up with the last of my equipment.

I also had a very good time, got to chat with several good people, including a few hams that I had otherwise only heard on the air. PDQ, it was very nice to meet you, finally. I hope to see you at another event along the way.

73, kx0vcu - Rusty