This weekend, 4-5 May 2024, St Albans just north of the Hawkesbury River is again hosting the Convict 100 mountain biking event. Our friends at CREST are again providing safety communications, and spent last weekend and yesterday (Friday 3 May 2024) setting up repeaters and other gear along the course.
Of course, the multi-talented Manly-Warringah Radio Society had a hand in this as well! Club secretary Des VK2TGJ is a CREST member and heavily involved with the group’s activities.
The crew on hand for the setup:
- – VK2BTQ Craig (CREST)
- – VK2JNA Dom (MWRS)
- – VK2JV John (CREST)
- – VK2SKY Richard (MWRS)
- – VK2SMF Scott (MWRS)
- – VK2TGJ Des (CREST / MWRS)
- – VK2WA Geoff (MWRS)
- – VK2YMI Brendan (MWRS)
(VK2AID Sajith and VK2BMX Stuart weren’t there for the setup, but were active doing comms once the event was underway.)
The group met up at Wisemans Ferry (same as last year) to discuss logistics and tasks over coffee, then set out to various sites to complete equipment installations.
John and Richard set up the base station at St Albans RFS, snaking coax cable from a temporary mast through various building crevices into the communications room. Quite tricky at first, but we got there in the end!
Meanwhile, Des and Scott headed north to install a solar-backed portable repeater in the middle of a paddock frequented by some curious cattle; I hope the cows kept their distance from the repeater!
Craig and Geoff headed east to complete installing other repeaters to service the remainder of the course.
The final job once everyone had regrouped back at St Albans was to prepare other comms gear for event officials, and to “install” mobile radios on a couple of All Terrain Vehicles to be used for transporting any injured participants for first aid treatment.
“Installation” involved lots of duct tape and cable ties! Pretty it wasn’t, but by the time we were finished everything was fairly solid. This was more thanks to the cable ties than the cheap duct tape we picked up at Wisemans, which turned out to be “sort of sticky” – on both sides!
Forecasted rain mostly spared the St Albans area, though we had to contend with a little as we did the ATV mods.
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