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GOBA Announcement
From Bill Sharp (tobshap-at-earthlink-dot-net):
You may be aware, the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure is the largest family oriented week long bicycle tour in the U.S.
This year will be its 17th year.
http://www.goba.com/
Because of the size of our bicycle mobile operation, we maintain a near 5 minute response time from call to squad on the site. We
continually look for ways to reduce that. The volunteer bicycle mobile hams are the front line communication link between the riders
and help. The more we have, the shorter that delay between injury and aid. For this group of uniquely suitable hams, it's their
mission for the week between Father's Day and Field Day in June, every year.
As you may recall me mentioning before, Hartley was instrumental in getting us up and running 17 years ago. That's how he and I got
to know each other. We saw it as an elete group. Those who could be depended on, could be counted on in an emergency to do the best
thing because they'd done it before.
In fact, Hartley edited my article on bicycle mobile emergency communications that was in CQ-VHF.
We thought this corps could then teach others, because it's a unique operating situation under which only hams qualify.
But enough of the background.
I wanted to get to as many bicycle mobile hams as possible to just let them know about GOBA and the role they would play should they
decide to see if they have what it takes to run all out as a bicycle mobile ham for a week.
We view it as the ultimate emergency preparedness test. These are the people who get the real experience. In a national emergency
these are the folks who would be looked to as they have the experience of handling the communications for a transient town of 3,000
that moves 50 or so miles a day.
Imagine the training a ham would get from just experiencing GOBA as a bicycle mobile operator one time.
Because of our size and needs we think at this point there are more bicycle mobile hams operating during GOBA than at any other
time, anywhere in the country. There's so many of us, GOBA usually treats us to dinner one night so we can all get together and have
an eyeball.
More information at
http://www.gobahams.org/
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