June 6, 2010 - The 49th Mid-American Canoe & Kayak Race is over, and much thanks is owed to the twenty radio volunteers who supported race officials and paddlers on Sunday, June 6, 2010. Mother Nature cooperated and gave us a beautiful breezy morning to start the paddlers off with a nice tail wind. As occurred last year, there were two starts. The first start at Mt. St. Mary Park in St. Charles was a little bit changed from last year. New plantings along the river blocked much of the area. Jeff Long, one of the Fox Valley Park District race coordinators, commented to me that he was surprised when he got there and saw how little area there was for staging the boats. Luckily, the paved path down to the water’s edge was mowed about one foot on each side. This allowed boats to be staged along its length. I, Tobi K9TCD, coordinated the communications with the timers at the river edge. I used our mobile rig’s cross band repeat feature for the first time and it worked great. I hit the repeater easily. The first heat started right on time. Ten boats left at the sound of the horn amid encouragement from bystanders. The rest of the heats went off pretty smoothly. However, after heat 22 two boats remained, but their paddlers were nowhere near. They were on a shuttle and didn’t arrive for over half an hour. We sent them off, pointing the way south, downriver and the first start was finished for the day.

The first portage at the Geneva dam was covered by Michelle KC9HDB, John K9VYH and Bill WB9LPW. They had the task of marking off boat numbers as they came out to walk around the dam. Keeping track of boat numbers is not the easiest thing to do, but these volunteers did a great job of it. Sometimes boats have previous years’ numbers on them. Luckily, this year we only noticed a few boats with this problem. Also, boat numbers were scratched out and hand-written to match the heat sheets, sometimes illegibly. This made for some interesting descriptions, such as “boat number 100 looks like 640”. Sometimes it was a little easier to describe the boats, because the paddlers were dressed up. We had pirates, Vikings, Blues Brothers and even a couple super heroes in tights and masks. Must have been a bit warm under there!

The second portage was at the Batavia dam. Dawn KC9LQS, Jeff N9JZN and Warren K9IH deftly handled getting boats to where they needed to be, keeping note of the numbers as they came through. This was the first year Dawn and Jeff helped out at this event and they caught on quickly. Warren was an old hat, but hadn’t participated in a few years. It was nice to have him back.

The second start, behind the VFW in Batavia, is a tricky area for radio communications. In the past, I was at this location and found that with my HT I had to stand up to be able to hit the repeater. I couldn’t stay seated in my nice comfy chair. So, this year, I asked Eric AB9OS to use his cross band repeater capabilities to make sure we were getting out. It worked great and Eric even took an extra step…into the water! There is a picture of him taken by Greg N9CHA, roving photographer, knee deep in the water making sure he could see all the boat numbers! Julika KC9RVQ was a big help and got some radio practice calling in heats and missing boat numbers. She did let her dad, Neil KB9RFX get on the radio too. Thanks Neil for getting Julika, one of our new hams to the event.

The final portage, in North Aurora, is always the busiest spot of the race with boats coming in many at a time. The Lions are cheering everyone on over loudspeakers. It is quite a challenge for the FRRL members to be heard. For a few years Bart KC9FQA and Catherine KC9KJU have efficiently gotten down to business here marking off boats amid the chaos. They had help this year from the Smith family: Pat N9TBD, Tony KC9RVR and Michelle (no call yet, but she’ll get it, I have faith!)  Pat helped call in information as needed and Tony and Michelle tracked the numbers. Tony got on the radio, too, providing more good work by one of our newest hams. I think having five people at this location helped this year.

At the finish at the Prisco Center in Aurora we had our Net Control, Kent W9NDW and two spotters, Tom WB9CHY and Keith N9YA. They kept Kent informed as to what was happening at the finish line. After the starts and portages were closed down, FRRL volunteers came down to the Prisco Center to partake in the food and festivities. There was quite a crowd with all the paddlers and their families who received free massages and food tastes, plus lunch and t-shirts and many give-aways.

One other FRRL member helped out even though she was not along the racecourse. Cyd N9CV was at her weather desk. Storms occurred Saturday night and were predicted for later in the day on Sunday. Although we didn’t get rained on, we were relieved knowing Cyd was watching out for us.

Many thanks to all of you mentioned above for your invaluable help with this race. I couldn’t have done it without you and I appreciate your dedication to this community service event and to the FRRL.