I'm going to have me first real operational experience this weekend in support of the Mountain Lakes 100 event. If a regular marathon isn't worth your time and and ultramarathon is not enough of a challenge you can run 100 miles of mountain trails between Olallie and Timothy Lake and back. Race details are here: Mountain Lakes 100 I will be assisting one of the local clubs at the communications command center located a short distance away from Timothy Lake. Basically there are several stations that runners will come through and will report bib numbers and if the runner needs assistance. I'll be working there in shifts tomorrow through Sunday afternoon and will get some great experience in coordinated communications.
I'm an ex-marathoner and I will never understand how someone can run these... Do they actually run a 100 miles? Is there an minimum time limit? Do they get days to accomplish this?
Not sure as the first I heard about it was two weeks ago and the web site doesn't have the details. The event is two days only - today and tomorrow. I was told that the course was 100 miles. I'm headed out in about two hours. I'll share my experience tomorrow after I get home as I don't think there is any cell coverage where I will be posted.
Web site says competitors have 30 hours. Also says to watch out for horses. Yeesh. The ONLY way this carcass would make 100 miles in 30 hours would be on wheels.
All I can say is that this was one heck of a great learning experience, and not just about communications operations. To start with these type of ultra marathons have been around for quite a while and are increasing in popularity. Also, there are 200 mile races that take place over five days. One of which is around Mt. St. Helens. We spent quite a lot of time working with Karen, who oversaw operations at our aid station, so I asked her some questions about the runners and got some surprising answers. The first is that the average age of the runners is around 40. Let that sink in a bit. The oldest runner was 61 and almost completed the course. The oldest runner who did complete was 59. Both of these were women as were a healthy percentage of the runners. Of the 160+ runners who started over 140 completed the race. There was a higher dropout rate this year because a fair amount of the race involved running through the snow. I think it's time that the phrase "runs like a girl" is put to rest. Our station, one of 11, was called the Clackamas Ranger Station, even though it never was one - it's actually the site of the Clackamas Lake Historic cabin,marked AS 9/12 on the map, making it the 9th stop as runners went north, and then the 12th stop after turning around and heading back south to Olalli Lake. Here is the runners entrance to Clackamas Ranger Station, you can see our antenna poking out just to the left of the white canopy in the foreground (the timekeeping station): Here is a picture of our trailer with Paul, who is the Secretary Treasurer of our club And a picture of Rich, who patiently taught me the ropes. Note the hand blur as he went for yet another face palm: A view of the comms we used for this event, we used a pair of Yaesu FTM-400DR transceivers. The one of the left was the active unit and the one on the right was a backup. The papers are coveing the damage that Rich did banging his head on the desk when I took control the first time: A view of the food station, warming tent (in the middle), and the First Aid station. They must have served hundreds of pounds of bacon and waffles and countless amounts of coffee during the event, finally closing up at 5:00 AM this morning: Giving information radioed in from another station to Jim the timekeeper, left, with the gent who manned communications at the turnaround point (AS10/The Dam) on the right.: Coordinating with the Med Techs to get aid sent to injured runners. Aid Station manager Karen is the lady in the blue coat in the food station behind them. Everybody was terrific to work with!: I didn't manage to get any photos of the runners coming through because they were running so fast I didn't have time for my camera to turn on between the time we heard cheers and horns and when they blew past without stopping.
The dynamics of the race are that the runners take off and are then followed by "sweepers" who try to ensure that assistance is given to anybody who falls behind. If they get to an aid station and not all runners have been accounted for then some of them are sent to find them. This became very critical as well as difficult after it got dark, and resulted in a great deal of communications between the stations. We used a repeater placed high on Mt. Hood to help connectivity in this very hilly and rugged environment, but still had situations where calls needed to be relayed through a third station. Now we are getting into the actual communications and why this thread in in this subforum. Due to the complexity of communications we used a managed communication plan called a directed net with one station acting as Net Control, similar to air traffic control at an airport. All ordinary communication was between a given aid station and net control. If one station needed to contact another, then they requested permission from Net Control. This was to ensure that there were no conflicting calls as well as to ensure that urgent messages such as medical attention or locating missing runners were given priority above all other calls. Here is an overview from our marathon net operations document. I will see if the club will permit me to post the entire document as it is quite well written: Nets operated during a marathon are directed nets. This means that: 1. Net Control is the controlling authority for the net. 2. All communications are controlled by Net Control. 3. No communications occur with other stations that are not cleared by Net Control. 4. All stations that check into the net must remain in the net until released by Net Control. 5. All stations are to use their tactical call sign during the net. 6. When initiating a contact between stations, the word “over” is not necessary. 7. During an exchange, the word “over” must be used if the transmitting station is expecting a response. 8. At the end of an exchange, the word “out” must be used to signify that no response is expected, and the exchange is complete. 9. When you close a conversation, you must sign with your TACTICAL call sign followed by your FCC call sign. My station, consisting of Rich and myself was Net Control from 4:00 PM Saturday to 7:30 AM this morning. My first ever Amateur Radio communication was acting as net control. At first I had a few protocol issues, but quickly got on track after I made a few notes. The other club volunteers posted at the various stations were patient with my mistakes and gave me assistance. In particular I was keying the mike too quickly after a received transmission, but was politely coached to wait a few seconds. Normal traffic was reporting bib numbers and runner times to the stations that had a time station with data entry (which is what we mostly did before taking over as Net Control), coordinating the delivery of food, water, and staff. We also helped to locate staff en route and sometimes re-route them elsewhere. We set up several third party calls between officials as well as support teams and runners. There is an amazing amount of logistics that take place and I don't see how you could manage an event this large and complex without communications. I know have a much better understanding of how communications are a force multiplier. There was a fair amount of urgent traffic trying to locate lost runners or getting aid to injured runners. The worst injury was a late night/early morning broken wrist suffered by a sweeper who was sent to find a missing runner that had failed to report as he passed through an aid station. There was also one runner who developed a breathing issue but recovered before assistance could arrive. Outside of that there were only a few issues reported. What is great about assisting these events is that you are practicing the same protocols you would during an actual emergency. Others such as the med techs were effectively doing the same thing. If you have a desire to participate in emergency communications these are outstanding ways to get experience. It's also useful if you are monitoring emergency comms. I had a great experience and got several weeks of exposure in a few hours. I will be participating with my club in future events to get sharper and retain what I learned.
Of necessity, your working net had to be far more formal than our 2M weekly club net. That said there are "rules" in place. As a directed net, net control calls for contacts, then invites the contacts to make the comments. There are hf nets that involve a lot of relaying of contact messages. Running our net takes pretty good logging skills, sometimes the contacts come fast and furious. Sounds like you had a pretty decent experience. That is a lot of what hamming is all about.
Sounds like the Baker to Vegas run. Checkpoints tracked 3 items - bib numbers, team names and auto (sag wagon) numbers. My bud & I would rent a little trailer from the Base MWR and set up shop below the Spring Mountains. The off shift ops could crash - or even make coffee for the on-shift. We were there along with race officials, family and supporters. All great fun to say the least. The one I never had a chance t support is the Silver State Classic Challenge (Silver State Classic Challenge Inc.) a very high speed open road timed race. Hams stations set up near the spots most likely to see a crash and call it in if one does occur. Mixed Vhf and HF, very challenging for a comms support part. (Silver State Classic Challenge Inc.) My bud, N3JNJ, has quite the setup for the race. I wrote an article about Tom for the April 2001 73 Magazine issue. Full text of "73 Magazine (April 2001)"
I recently helped (only about 2 hours) in a bike ride for charity -- one of the MS rides. The hams had a central station, then hams on the road (partnered with SAG drivers) and at the rest stops as well. One thing I found interesting. Each amateur radio operator installed "Family locator" from the Life360 company on their android phone or tablet. This allowed the "net control" people at the central site to see where other ham operators were located. Useful tool for a lot of people moving around (can see their location on a map). Although that type of data wouldn't be available in a grid-down situation, it was very useful to have that app available for the weekend. Sorry I couldn't have been there more than 2 hours. The event took most of Saturday and Sunday as well but I was only there for a short time.
There is a HAM Radio version of this kind of Tracking, called APRS... It uses the Ham Radio Frequencies to send and receive Position Data to ALL other APRS Stations within Range... In my White Toyota 4X4 Pickup I have one of my Kenwood TM-D710a Vhf/Uhf Radios that has APRS built-in and along with my AvMap6 does this function quite nicely... The Hams have defined an APRS Frequency in each Band, for General Use, however, any HAM can use any Voice or Data Frequency, for a Private APRS System... AlaskaChick and I have Kenwood TH-72a Portables with APRS Capability, and when we need such a service, we can be "Up and Running" with the Truck, as a Base, and our HTs in a matter of minutes...
