Josh Billings 2018 Recap

The Josh has been “what it is” for the last 40+ years. Everyone in a traditional groove.

Due to algae attack at Stockbridge Bowl the race had to be moved to a clean lake. Richmond Bowl was chosen and the bike route and run was rerouted. Start and Finish were kept traditional.

Herculean efforts by the race committee and every volunteer brought a great race. Maybe change is good? Smiles on everyone’s faces and amazement of the new courses confirms this.

I was assigned to SAG 2 / Sweep duties. We split this over my radio vehicle and a transport vehicle. This worked rally well since the sweep part remained as the transport vehicle would do that – transport broken down racers to the exchange. We operated the ham-net on Mt Greylock 2m repeater and via 2m simplex relay in the dead-zones. Communication from SAG 2 (me) to the Transport unit was via DMR Biz-Band radios. This also worked extremely well. The simplex range was actually surprisingly good.

The traditional concern was always access to the race course for support vehicles. Police from numerous departments along the open and closed roadway has a difficult time sorting out support vehicles from the general public. This year we had more magnetic door signs (worked really well) and the use of a easily identifiable green sticker on the front of the cars created a forward facing ID. Best year for course access!

APRS was unfortunatly not used in an organized way, however some vehicles had beacons running.