Amateur radio operations assist in monitoring the MC200 from Madison to Chicago. The following note was circulated June 7 by Jerry Martin - KC9BDA of the MC200 Comm Team. Since Rank Strangers won't be challenging for race leadership it is extremely unlikely we will be mentioned by name.
Last year the "hammies" were broadcasting a race summary every hour which we called "Voice Of The Race" (VOTR). This was primarily for the other hams "downstream" to let them know a quick overview and if the race pace was ahead/behind. That way they knew to open their TA's [Transition Areas] soon or later that our scheduled time. When these VOTR updates occurred, many runners began to crowd around the hams to listen to these brief race status reports. We want to get this information out to more people.
With the severe weather we experienced last year, several "weather holds" were implemented due to lightning and tornado activity within the 12 mile safe zone we established.
To be able to get this useful and very important information out to the non-hams, (and really anyone interested in following the race progress), we established a "Twitter" account. This allows anyone with a computer at home, and/or a cell phone with a text message plan to receive all these briefings.
Simply go to twitter.com to sign up for a free account, and search for MC200_Comm. You should "follow" the MC200_Comm link, and if you wish to get these updates on your cell phone, enable that feature. It's pretty easy, and we will begin testing our VOTR message format this coming week with some sample messages. We want to get the most information on the small screen and yet be easy to read.
We plan to broadcast the VOTR at the bottom of the hour and send the tweet at the same time. Weather broadcasts and tweets will go out as needed.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment