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/