Thirteen Amateur Radio Operators (AROs) under the ARES umbrella provided communications assistance for the YMCA’s annual fundraising bike ride in the Black Moshannon State Park Northeast of Phillipsburg, PA on August 11, 2012.  The participating AROs were from both the Nittany Amateur Radio Club (NARC) and Phillipsburg Amateur Radio Association (PARA), including AROs from Centre and Clearfield Counties.

AROs arrived for briefing around 10:00 and were on duty at until about 14:50.

Pre Race Breifing

Participants were:

• N3CRM, Chuck Maggi, PARA & NARC
• K3CWP, Carmine Prestia, NARC (Centre County EC)
• W3EOD, Scott Rummings, PARA
• K3ERP, Elaine Prestia, NARC
• K3GEM, Greg Miller, NARC
• W3JIM, Jim Rayburn, NARC
• N3LI, Mike Coslo, NARC
• AB3NC, Tracy Kendall, NARC
• K3OOL, Craig Miller, NARC
• KR3ORY, Rory Stenerson, NARC
• KB3QKR, Richard Brnik, Jr., PARA
• N3SPW, John Szwarc (and his son John), PARA
• W3TNE, Tom Eby, NARC

Participating amateur radio operators

Although most of the ride occurred on gravel or stone roads some of the legs were on pretty rugged trails.  One ARO (N3LI) was at the intersection of the most unimproved road and the Allegheny Front Trail, well within the Park.  Ride organizers counted seventy three (73) riders.  Though not a high number, the course of the ride is arranged so that it crosses over itself several times at a number of locations with a number of places where the riders come out of a trail onto a road.  These locations risk bicycle/bicycle or bicycle/vehicle crashes.

Even so, there were no significant crashes or injuries.  The one crash was a single bicycle and the rider was able to get up, dust himself off, and continue on to finish the ride.  Most of the radio traffic consisted of reports about the first and last riders crossing an ARO’s location and the location of the ‘sweep riders’ at the end of the ride.

The consensus of all the operators, and some listeners, was that the event went very well and we received very nice comments from the ride organizers, particularly Jodi Harpster and Dave Dunlap.  In an e-mail to K3CWP Dave said,

“. . . I  want to thank you and all your volunteers for all the work you put into the race yesterday.  You all did a fantastic job and there is no way we could pull this off without your help.  Having the radio contact is indispensable!  We really hope you and your crew will be available for next year.”

ARES, NARC, and PARA certainly appreciate those kind words and thank the YMCA for asking us to participate.  We want to help next year.

From K3CWP, the amateur radio EC and coordinator for this event,

“Thanks to everyone who participated.  This event is an example of amateur radio at its best, providing a public service while testing our operators and equipment at providing what we do best, communicating.”