On Sunday, August 24, 2003, the Reston Bicycle Club will be holding their annual Reston Bike Ride, supported by the Loudoun County chapter of the American Red Cross. The Loudoun ARC is, in turn, supported by the Loudoun Amateur Radio Group, of which I'm a member. LARG will be providing communications support for the event, which includes a Century (100 miles), a Metric Century (100 kilometers) and a Half Metric Century (50 kilometers). An approximately nine-mile stretch of all of the rides will be on the Washington & Old Dominion Trail, and won't be accessible to the various support vehicles. So, here comes Amateur Radio bicycle support!

Along with several other Amateur Radio operators, I'll be on my bike with a magnetic mount antenna on the back, and an HT (walkie-talkie) bungie-corded to the handlebars. I'll be running a test tomorrow to see how well my "communications suite" works. I've got a pretty good antenna (Larsen 2m/70cm dual-band antenna, approx 40" tall), and I'm hoping that the 5-watt output from my Yaesu VX-5R will be pushing enough power to communicate effectively with our fixed and vehicle-mobile stations.

I tested my setup last weekend with a much smaller antenna, and I wasn't too pleased with the results. Consequently, I bought the Larsen this week, and I noticed a tremendous difference in signal strength and quality when I tested it outside my house. The ARRL Emergency Coordinator in Loudoun County still recommends that I use a more robust radio, such as a mobile, to improve both audio quality and power output. While I don't doubt his experience and expertise in this matter, and I'm sure that both my reception and transmission would improve with the use of the mobile, but I still want to test my current setup to see how it works. Adding to my reluctance of leaping to the "50-watt mobile" solution is the inconvenience of extracting my Yaesu FT-8900 out of my truck and installing it on the bicycle, plus the expense and inconvenience of buying and mounting sufficiently powerful gel cell batteries to supply the power. So I'm going to try to run some tests tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll be able to contact Jim Scott - KG6EFT in Reston on a simplex frequency (as opposed to using a repeater), since Jim has graciously agreed to help me test my setup.

I'll be posting the results, so keep an eye out for my next post (which won't take me ten days this time).