6/22/2002: Mystery balls from the ocean

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by Griff
Radio volunteer, thats pretty cool, I guess these rides really require a lot of help.

Yes, there's lots of support required: rest stops, "sag wagons", cycle repair trucks, and the radio operators, who provide communications along the route. An in-place network of radio opoerators who already know radio network procedures and how to operate their equipment is a pretty valuable thing. If you 've ever listened in on untrained volunteers trying to use, say, CB or FRS radios to do anything organized, you'll know what I mean.

Long sections of the Philadelphia City-to-Shore run are outside good cellphone coverage, and cellphones are far from an ideal communications medium when it comes to coordinating the efforts of a large number of stations...about 150 in our case, IIRC.

I know our riders are comforted when they pass by to know that they can get a message to the ride management or get a call for emergency medical help handled without a lot of confusion about what their exact location is and who should handle it. And if the ride management needs to get information out to the riders for some reason, *one* radio call gets it out to every operator on the route simultaneously.