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Marathons & Events
10/2/11:  We tried out three pieces of technology at the 2011 Marathon.  One was three D-Star radios in the same truck to three repeaters.  We used all low power (our DD machines are on great sites)  No Problems.  We also tried our IP phone system - worked great.  And we tried our Ubiquity 5G radios on an indirect (NLOS) path of 1.7 miles from the finish line to St. Paul Fire.  All were good.  We also used iPads again for hospital tent check- into to our systems.   We are running a highly secure encrypted wireless LAN in the medical tent. 
9/11/11: We have most of our home made Linux thin client/routers down right now, so we will need to use the base D-Star DD mode.  The Icom gear has been flawless in service.  So we will need to use 3 repeaters and three uplink radios out of the data trailer for the Marathon.  Two work fine this should be easy.   We did hand over the fleet of new thin clients to Max for the upgrade. 

8/22/11: The final pre event medical meeting is coming up for Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon on 10/2/11.  We need as many operators as we can find for a range of duties. 
6/21/11: We are recruiting operators for on course observer duties at Red White and Boom 7/4.  In a recent race, our folks dispatched an EMS rig when the seriously injured runner was in an area not covered by cell phones for 911.  In our events, our team is very tightly integrated with the medical volunteers at every level.  This also applies to the operations of the aid station- we might help organize supplies of ice water and towels for a surge of heatstroke patients on a hot day- this is hardly a business function of the event.  This also frees the licensed medical team for patient care and medical decision making duties.  The goal of the combined organization is the fastest possible reaction time to medical emergencies.  This also eliminates any chance of functional overlap with our EMS partners- the better the reporting the better the odds of a "save" - it's a win win.  

6/20/11: Jeff likes to collect cell phone numbers of the various medical folks as a backup- this makes sense. 
5/20/11: So for Red White and Boom 7/4 AM the Hennepin County Truck is the communications center, and onsite medical will be run out of the 84' SMES truck.
5/19/11: Twin Cities in Motion has a new Race Director.  He is Jeff Decker, who comes from New York.  He has worked/managed the New York Marathon and is familiar with Amateur Radio.  He is in favor of our strong push toward using the Incident Command System, and is eager to see our sohpisticated digital infrastruture in action.  He met Matt and Mike, who are our area EMS leaders, and who team up effectively on race days to support us.  
5/15/11: We are working the Red White and Boom Half Marathon in Minneapolis on 7/4/11. The plan is this one is all digital.  We have lots of repeaters- we need operators with D-Star radios.  All of the communications vans have D-Star already. 
http://www.mtcmarathon.org/HalfMarathon/index.cfm
4/2/2011:  We have a simple process for setting up at any new event.  We meet with the organizers and obtain the goals (communicaitons, data, etc.) of the medical side of the operation.  We then discover who the Incident Commander is (often the Medical Director) and then set up a basic net control point and series of communicationstions endpoints.  Only then do we pick out the technology.  This would apply at any real disaster scene- find higher authority and set up a basic "net" structure.   The really simple version of this is to arrive and say "hi we are communications people- who is in charge of that section/division" - which should put us into the "useful assets" category and not the "random untrained volunteers" category.  This is unless our skills only cover technology more than 30 years old.     
3/1/2011: Our first 2011 event is the Minneapolis Marathon.  Dave Johnson (Metropolitan Hospital Compact) will be the Chair, and Mike Ostlund, N0ANC will assist Dave.   The usual assets will be requested, and we will be managing medical communications, reporting to the Medical Director and Incident Commander using an Incident Action Plan.  The City of Minneapolis helped us last year with this process. We will need operators- the plan is one per mile. The date is 6/5/11. Contact Dave or Mike here. http://www.teamortho.us/Minneapolis-Marathon/