Public Service (Communications)

The last time I helped out providing communications for a public service event was in June 2019 in the Rideau Lakes Cycle tour.

You can follow this link to see what we did back then in the good old Before Covid days

Now that we are told that COVID is behind us and we must live with it (or die from it) the event was held again this weekend just past. Rather than be at a checkpoint somewhere in the middle of somewhere I was doing dual duty as one of the Communicators at the End of Saturdays Leg and the Start of Sundays leg as I was at Queens University doing some Start/Finish line stuff as well as being one of the Net Control Operators.

Most of our local (Kingston Ontario)crew came back (after 2 years off) to operate for the event and we used the VE3FRG 2m repeater which is normally a C4FM repeater but for this event was locked in the FM mode. Even though all of our team have C4FM gear not all the other (Aux Communication Groups) have that mode so to keep everyone in our area on the same page (and same mode) we kept it FM only.

The event itself seemed to run smoothly and there was nothing worse that a few riders getting small amounts of road rash. The tour management seemed quite pleased with our services and when we were shutting down our end of the tour as the riders were safely on their way to Perth Ontario the words I heard most was “See you next year”

I think they will!!!

Sorry but to be honest I did not have the time to snap any pics so…. next year I will try harder

73bob