Final Prep for 2025 Josh Triathlon

We are in the final phases of prepping for the 48th Josh Triathlon this Sunday September 14th.

Steve KA1PIJ is organizing a handful of hams who work the exchanges (bike to boat and boat to run), Stockbridge Bowl Safety Boat Team, race finish timer support and race command.

On my end, together with KC1GZG, WI1U and a handful of non hams, we are organizing the SAG (Support And Gear) support. VHF DMR Simplex is used for comms due to the non-hams in our team. DMR gives us 10-20% added effective simplex range as compared to analog and also some privacy. We also support a fairly large APRS network to support Race Command who watches the Tail of the race on a 42″ monitor from a internet feed. They want a one minute or better resolution which is a major challenge in the Alford Hills. The parade of vehicles employ 7 APRS Trackers and 5 IGates/Digis.

Together we will equip the non-ham vehicles, make sure everything works, and make it look like we actually know what we are doing as an event team??!!

Then we join the parade of bike racers, stay out of their way but remain VERY visible (signage and strobes) and wait for the…… The parade takes us through 5 coordinated police and fire departments jurisdictions supporting the race. A long boring day in the beautiful Berkshires back country only to be interrupted by confusing information coming in from text messages or statewide trunked 800 MEMA radio system. Then solve the problem like pro’s.

At the end we probably all think “Never Again” but we get high-fives and “See You Next Year”.