Continuing with the saga of the Boys and Girls Club 12th Annual Smart Smiles 5K race … it was a great success. The race is a fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club of the Virginia Peninsula. There were 288 runners/walkers, and there were no injuries that required our attention. Our radio participation consisted mostly of status reports to the race officials (first runners at our position on the course, last runner, etc.) Nothing exciting, but the organizers were grateful to have us in place in case something DID happen (like a medical emergency)! The youngest starter was around 5 years old and the oldest was older than me (76+)! The weather was warm and very humid, and the water stop at my position was much appreciated.
We had the use of a portable UHF repeater, which solved the issues we had last year with solid communications to all parts of the course. We had a UHF simplex frequency as a backup, and net control seemed to be able to hear most stations well. I used my Icom ID-51A and had my Kenwood TH-F6A as a backup. The Icom performed perfectly with a speaker mic and earbud.
To summarize, it was a lot of fun to do a public service event again. It had been over 10 years since the last one, and it was good to get out and interact with everybody. I met some great people, and saw quite a few that I knew already. Everybody seemed to have a good time … it was a great way to spend a Saturday morning!
73 de Dick N4BC