Today, volunteers from the Tryon Amateur Radio Club and Fulton County ARES came out to support the 6th annual Juveinile Diabetes Research Foundation 5K run at the Boulevard School in Gloversville NY. Our volunteers provided race status communications for the event staff and safety spotting for the participants. We are happy to say that there were no adverse events that took place this year. In past years, we have assisted with locating missing participants and alerted emergency services of race participants in need of medical care. This event included two different operating procedures this year. As a test of our communication abilities, we operated the race on 446.000mhz simplex. We usually operate on a 2 meter simplex frequency. This test showed the ability to use a 70cm frequency if needed for a secondary net frequency. Net control also operated at less than 1/2 watt output power. We had 100% reliable communications throughout the entire event. We also moved our volunteers to different assignments during the race as we did not have as many operators as we usually have available. This was not a bad thing. As a volunteer organization, we realize and expect that our members have other commitments and responsibilities and are not available for all that we do. Today proved the professional abilities of our members to be able to adapt to a situation and still complete our mission with 100% reliability! I wish to thank the following volunteers for participating in today’s event: Joe-KB2TJE, Edgar-KC2UEZ, Grayson-N2KAE, Howard- KD2ABK and Don WA2EZ.
Steve-K2ALS
Fulton County ARES Emergency Coordinator