The Usual Suspect
NES Member
I dunno, I'm in Norwood. I'll look around.
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Anyone Work Comms for Boston Marathon?
- Thread starter cockpitbob
- Start date
cockpitbob
NES Member
Here's the ARRL's club finder.
There's a bunch within 25 miles of Norwood.
There's a bunch within 25 miles of Norwood.
I was on an Elite bus, I was kind of disappointed at the gross lack of communication protocol being followed contrary to the documentation.
I don't know who it was, but I repeatedly heard a female operator calling in the status of her bus and most of the time, she was unreadable. When NCS called back, she never answered. Either she was clueless or her radio REALLY sucked. Either way, she was basically useless.
The Usual Suspect
NES Member
Do you remember which band she was on?
She was on the Waltham repeater. T2????
Funny thing is, I was getting pissed FOR the NCS.
![[rofl]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/013.gif "ROFL [rofl]")
I mean...seriously, have your shit together if you plan on working the race. That is kinda the point of being a HAM. ![[grin]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/041.gif "Grin [grin]")
I don't think I could be NCS for an event this big. I'd start getting pissy with idiot operators.
![[rofl2]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/035.gif "ROFL2 [rofl2]")
She seemed to be making the repeater with intermittent drops. Audio was very low. It sounded as though she didn't have a headset, speaking too softly, or wasn't speaking into the mike.
Despite the very low audio, I could hear what she was saying most of the time from where I was but net was having difficulties. At one point, another ham relayed the message from her on the same repeater to net.
Perhaps a combination of issues. Antenna + headset. Whatever rig she had simply wasn't cutting it. But, I think her actual communications protocol was ok.
Yes, she was on T2.
Baofeng with stock rubber duck antenna inside the vehicle probably.
The Usual Suspect
NES Member
Yeah, you gotta have the external antenna.
The Usual Suspect
NES Member
So I had submitted my reviews, hopefully everyone else will too.
I was out at H25, ran both stations because the other H25 operator didn't show. I had almost nothing to do, just the beginning and end water counts and then the hourly checkins. My expected channel was dead to me, couldn't hear it at all so I had to fall back to a repeater earlier on the course. Made it a bit weird, but it wasn't a big deal.
I'm hoping next year to end up on a station with more traffic. It was frustrating to be stuck out there, especially knowing that there was a guy at the nearby medical station with a baofeng that showed up without the radio programmed, I had to do it for him..from the front panel...at the briefing. Ugh. Had fun anyway.
My reviews are in, and I sent them an email right after the event with a whole pile of thoughts.
I'm hoping next year to end up on a station with more traffic. It was frustrating to be stuck out there, especially knowing that there was a guy at the nearby medical station with a baofeng that showed up without the radio programmed, I had to do it for him..from the front panel...at the briefing. Ugh. Had fun anyway.
My reviews are in, and I sent them an email right after the event with a whole pile of thoughts.
Come join us at START next year, you certainly won't be bored
The Usual Suspect
NES Member
I'll be back next year. I should get a backpack radio.
Lots of timeline reporting (Making sure things happen on time so other things can happen on time, sending wave release info down course) and most positions are Communications assistants to BAA Officials. And, you are in the middle of all the action, all 30,000 runners and 1,000 spectators in one place at the same time. We are a different animal at start, and usually very busy.
cockpitbob
NES Member
After working comms on the course 4 years in a row I had to cancel 3 weeks ago. Work went insane and I'm spending most of this month in CA. It looks like I picked a great year to not be standing outside for10 hours![[smile]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/001.gif "Smile [smile]")
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What terrible weather for the runners and volunteers. I doubt there will be any running records set this year.
. What terrible weather for the runners and volunteers. I doubt there will be any running records set this year.
First year working it and had a great time. I was lucky since I picked transportaion.
Unless you were in the tent, you got freakin' soaked. I was in one of the medical sweep buses. Our last stop of the day before our driver had to leave was MED08. That place was SLAMMED with runners dropping out. Largest load we got. Runners were cheek-to-jowl in the van but weren't complaining thanks to the heat from the van and fellow runners.
Unless you were in the tent, you got freakin' soaked. I was in one of the medical sweep buses. Our last stop of the day before our driver had to leave was MED08. That place was SLAMMED with runners dropping out. Largest load we got. Runners were cheek-to-jowl in the van but weren't complaining thanks to the heat from the van and fellow runners.
cockpitbob
NES Member
Good on you for stepping up and volunteering BlindFire.
I might have to try transportation next year. It sounds fun and not booring. Hydration stations are easy duty(in good Wx) and now that the first aid tents have moved the real medical traffic to medical people and commercial radios, the med tents aren't that interesting.
But then, even the Hams with nothing to do are still important. Sort of like my CCW. You want that capability even though odds are 1,000:1 it won't be used. In 2013 when the bombs went off and the cell towers overloaded, dealing with 25,000 half naked bodies getting colder by the minute would have been a clusterF without communications along that 26 mile line.
I might have to try transportation next year. It sounds fun and not booring. Hydration stations are easy duty(in good Wx) and now that the first aid tents have moved the real medical traffic to medical people and commercial radios, the med tents aren't that interesting.
But then, even the Hams with nothing to do are still important. Sort of like my CCW. You want that capability even though odds are 1,000:1 it won't be used. In 2013 when the bombs went off and the cell towers overloaded, dealing with 25,000 half naked bodies getting colder by the minute would have been a clusterF without communications along that 26 mile line.
yeah, it was fun to see a little on tv and then to hear you guys go back and forth. It adds so much more to the event by getting a small glimpse into what is going on behind the scenes to keep that event so organized.
This was my 5th year in a row at the Start line; this year I was handed a commercial radio and told my BAA lead would have my frequency, he didn't. When I met up with him he said "I told them i didn't want one of those f$cking radios, that's why I have you. You tell me what you think i need to know." This was my 3rd year working for the same person, apparently he used to chew threw HAMs every year; now he requests me.
It was wet, but for the most part the people at Start weren't cold, our team had a good string of emails explaining how to dress for the weather.
It was wet, but for the most part the people at Start weren't cold, our team had a good string of emails explaining how to dress for the weather.
Oh nice. Did you have to deal with the new start system at all or not so much since you were shadowing? I'd considered START because we'd get to go home earlier, but glad I started out on TRANSPORT.
I will do transport again and maybe do EXPRESS if possible. I suck at reading maps and was basically useless to my driver. Luckily, we had a nurse on the van who lived in the area so she was able to navigate. This was my driver's 4th year doing that loop, so he knew most of the roads anyway.
The one thing we did have problems with was resupply on our VAN. The docs said that we could resupply at the tents, but given the volume of runners dropping out, they ran out of mylar blankets very quickly. We ended up snagging some from one of the EXPRESS buses.
cockpitbob
NES Member
Blindfire, how well organized was the whole transportation thing? In the years that I've been at a medical tents we've had major complaints about Transportation. 2 years ago we had an Elite runner drop out at our med station. In 1.5hrs and 4 radio calls we never got an ETA or any other useful information. I started monitoring Transportation on my backup radio. After our runner had been chilling down for 2hrs I was just getting ready to break the rules and speak to the Transportation net directly when I heard the bus was finally coming to our station.
The root of the problem seemed to be too many communications middle-men. Med tents talk to Med net control who passes the message to Transportation net control who talks to the busses, BUT the bus company is the one actually telling the driver where to go.
The root of the problem seemed to be too many communications middle-men. Med tents talk to Med net control who passes the message to Transportation net control who talks to the busses, BUT the bus company is the one actually telling the driver where to go.
Yeah, I remember hearing about that. The thing is, we are backup for dispatch. The bus contractor has primary control over where the buses and vans are sent. So, when you call your course NCOC and request the Elite van, the ham transport net doesn't hear about it. The bus company actually dispatches the Elite vans point to point. So, if you had a van that picked up a runner at M08 for example, he/she would get taken directly to the Finish Line. Hopefully, you'd have time to swing by multiple stops on the way into Boston. But if that doesn't happen, that bus is basically gone for an hour easily. I only heard a handful of Elites drop out this year, so it didn't seem like we had long wait times. I think this year we had 4 Elite vans. Not sure how many they had two years ago.
Funny thing is, we actually picked up a couple Elite runners on our van. They just wanted to get out of the cold and didn't really care. We dropped them at Babson and they waited on the Express bus until an Elite van showed up to take them in.
All in all, it wasn't bad this time around.
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