By: Drew McGhee, KA3EJV, EC Blair County and Carmine Prestia, K3CWP, EC Centre County

ARES and Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS) assets from Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Centre, and Huntingdon counties provided safety, health, and welfare communications support for the 2015 Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society Bike MS “Keystone Country Ride.” Further assistance came from the Bedford County Amateur Radio Society (BCARS), Horseshoe Amateur Radio Club (HARC), Huntingdon County Amateur Radio Club (HCARC), and Nittany Amateur Radio Club (NARC) Amateur Radio operators. The ride was held over the July 18 – 19, 2015 weekend.
This event is a major fundraiser for the fight against MS. This year marked the twentieth anniversary of the Keystone Country Ride. Amateur Radio has been part of the ride for all 20-years and has become essential to the safety of this event. Bicycle riders started in Hollidaysburg and rode to State College on Saturday, July 18. On Sunday, July 19 they turned around and returned to Hollidaysburg. Amateur Radio coordination with the MS Society was handled by Drew McGhee KA3EJV and Carmine Prestia K3CWP.
This year over thirty Amateur Radio operators volunteered. Most helped on both days. Around 500 bicycle riders participated.

Rod Kreuter WA3ENK deserves a special mention. Rod was bicycle mobile both days and served as a route marshal. He pedaled the 150-mile route all the while transmitting his position via APRS and operating VHF/UHF FM. This year saw two motorcycle mobiles; Frank Harchak KB3IWJ and Mike Wall W3MRW. They both operated VHF/UHF FM and served as route marshals.

For several years now, the ride has been used as an Amateur Radio EMCOMM exercise. Incident Command System (ICS) procedures are practiced and ICS forms used. This year the ICS-214 “Activity Log” form was introduced and used. The extensive planning and use of ICS forms and protocols paid big dividends for this year’s ride. There were several real world emergencies requiring quick route and assignment changes and coordination amongst the event’s command staff.

Very early on Saturday morning (July 18), almost four-inches of rain fell within a two to three hour period over northeastern Blair and western Huntingdon Counties. This heavy rain eventually flooded the planned Camp Kanasataki lunch stop site in Huntingdon County along with part of the route. Two Amateur Radio operators, Mark Leibfreid KC3CMF and his wife Patti KC3DNA, were temporally trapped at “Camp K.” They eventually made it out with help from the local fire department. After securing dry shoes, both were back on the air later Saturday and again all day Sunday, July 19. The rain saturated soil caused trees to fall which brought power lines down with them on and along the route through Huntingdon County.

Overall, ten-miles or so of the route had to be changed to get around flooded roadways, downed trees and power lines. The lunch stop was moved to the Halfmoon Valley Church in Centre County. Two new water and snack stops were set-up between the Williamsburg rest stop and the Halfmoon Valley Church. All of these changes occurred while the bulk of the riders were still bicycling between the Ritchey’s Dairy rest stop in Martinsburg and the Williamsburg rest stop. When this was mentioned during the Saturday evening banquet, several bicyclists stated that they didn’t know anything was amiss until they reached the “World Famous Cookie Stop” at the Halfmoon Valley Church which became the world famous lunch stop too.

Unrelated to the flooding, but a result of the weather system that caused it, extreme heat (90+ temperatures) and humidity (dew points 69-71) caused several heat stress related medical emergencies especially on Sunday, July 19. This required coordination between QRS (Quick Response Service) and EMS (Emergency Medical Service) units, and Bike MS event staff to make sure patients were quickly cared for. All of this coordination was done through the use of Amateur Radio assets. Amateur Radio provided a good example of how true interoperability can be accomplished across multiple counties.

What helped with this interoperability and quick coordination was having Amateur Radio operators imbedded with the support vehicles associated with the ride. Most of the vehicles, including the two QRS units, had APRS too. Introduced to this Bike MS event as an experiment several years ago by Ellwood “Woody” Brem K3YV, APRS is almost a requirement now. One type of medical emergency noticeably absent from this year’s ride was bee stings. Maybe the bees got flooded out on Saturday too.

This year’s ride marked the introduction of ICS Incident Communications Center Manager (INCM) position. The INCM manages the Incident Communications Center (ICC) and is part of the Communications Unit (COMU). On Saturday, July 18, Carmine K3CWP served as INCM with Tom Cooney, Jr. W3SF serving as assistant INCM. The Centre Region Council of Governments’ Command Van was used for the Incident Command Post (ICP), ICC, and Net Control Station (NCS) operations on July 18. The Centre Region Council of Governments has generously loaned their Command Van to use for this Bike MS event for several years now.

On Sunday, July 19, Tom W3SF served as INCM with Carmine K3CWP served as assistant INCM. The Blair County Emergency Management Agency’s (Blair EMA) new Command Trailer was used for ICP / ICC / NCS operations on July 19. The Bike MS event was the second event in as many months that Blair EMA dispatched their Command Trailer for use by Blair County ACS to support an Amateur Radio EMCOMM exercise.

Thanks go out to both of these agencies for the use of their command and communications assets. Without which, coordinating safety, health, and welfare communications as well as incident command operations would have been much more cumbersome to accomplish.

This year’s ride had more, and more significant challenges than rides of years past. However, the Amateur Radio volunteers, most of whom were associated with their home county’s ACS program, were able to ensure the proper response and make the event as safe as possible for all the participants, event staff, and the general public. Most of all though, thanks to the National MS Society, Pennsylvania Keystone Chapter for asking the Amateur Radio community to participate. The Amateur Radio community wholeheartedly supports the Keystone Country Ride as a public service event. The Bike MS event though too offers a tremendous opportunity for the Amateur Radio community to practice emergency communications operations in a real world, real time, and pretty much unscripted, full-scale exercise.

WTAJ TV-10 did a short news piece about the ride on their Friday, July 17, 2015 late evening newscast. Within the video is a short piece on how Amateur Radio is used to support the ride. Click here to see that video.

The photos of the ride have been posted too. Click here to see those photos.

Next year’s Bike MS Keystone Country Ride will be July 23-24, 2016. Too soon?

Amateurs from Centre County were:

• K3CWP, Carmine
• KB3VDG, Ryan
• W3JIM, Jim
• K3OOL, Craig
• KR3ORY, Rory
• N3CRM, Chuck
• K3NTS, Kent
• WA3ENK, Rod
• KC3EHQ, Scott
• AA3SQ, Joyce
• K3ARL, Karl
• NK8Q, Mark
• KC0QJX, Gordon