On Saturday and Sunday, July 23 and 24 amateur radio operators from Centre, Blair, and Huntingdon Counties provided communications assistance for the Annual Keystone Country Ride of the Keystone Division of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. The ride is a fundraising event that runs from Hollidaysburg, PA to State College, PA and back. That’s a total of 150 miles, and this year there were 640+ riders! Amateur Radio Emergency Services assistance has become an important part of the event. The ride moves through a number of areas where cell phone coverage is non existent but amateur repeaters provide very good coverage and a network that allows all of the communications units hear what is happening.
Amateur radio operators from Centre County and the Nittany Amateur Radio Club were:
- Rick, KR3C
- Elaine, K3ERP
- Carmine, K3CWP
- Craig, K3OOL
- John, W3JXP
- Joe, KA3GBC
- Greg, K3GEM
- Jim, KB3TBX
- Bob, K3BOB
- Jim, W3JIM
K3BOB provided weather watch services from his home station. Fortunately, this year there were no lightning storms and the main weather concern was the extreme heat. Temperatures exceeded 100 degrees in several places. W3JIM provided an link to Warrior’s Mark Fire Company Fire Police on both Saturday and Sunday.
The rest of the operators served as net control stations, fixed stations, or mobile stations riding with SAG wagons.
APRS beacons were used by many of the mobile stations making position determinations much easier for Net Control operators who watched the progress of the ride on www.aprs.fi. One of the mobile amateur radio operators rode in or provided the ‘Tail End’ station following the last rider making it much easier to see where the ride ended and to determine how close SAG wagons were to riders in need of assistance.
For the second year riders suffered very few problems in the way of crashes. There were several bee stings and mechanical breakdowns that amateur communications aided by routing help to the scene. The only real emergency occurred when one of the Motorcycle Marshalls crashed on his motorcycle in front of the Penn Stater on Sunday morning. Again, through amateur communications ambulances were dispatched to the scene.
One rider made a wrong turn and was observed then contacted by an amateur radio operator who helped get a SAG wagon to return the rider to the regular course.
This year an MS Society official from the Cleveland, OH area was in attendance for training purposes to observe how this ride was conducted. She spoke with K3GEM at Halfmoon Church and expressed considerable interest in the coordination of communications with and by amateur radio.
Special thanks go to:
- The Centre Region Council of Governments and Centre County for loaning out the Centre Region Mobile Command Van for net control operations from the Penn Stater. Two radios and two operators provided communication on the Centre County (146.85-) and Blair County (146.61-) repeaters.
- The Nittany Amateur Radio Club and K3YV and N3EB for use of the Centre County repeater.
- Centre County Emergency Management Agency Director Randy Rockey for loan of several VHF/UHF mobile and handheld radios for use during the event.
- The Keystone Country Division of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and Director Sharon O’Keiff for asking us to participate.
- Drew, KA3EJV, Blair County EC, who did the bulk of coordinating with the MS Society and amateur radio operators in Blair and Huntingdon Counties.
- Jim, KB3TBX who, in addition to participating, positioned a personal digipeater at Camp Kanasataki. This unit helped eliminate most of a ‘black hole’ in APRS coverage in and around that area by acting as an I-Gate to relay APRS beacons to the Internet where the stations were then displayed on APRS tracking sites.
