LARC Longmont Halloween Parade Support

I volunteered with my club, the Longmont Amateur Radio Club and we provided communications support for the annual Halloween Parade in Longmont, Colorado.

As usual, I made a video on YouTube and here it is:

As usual, Doug, KE0SI asked on one of the LARC nets for volunteers. I did’t sign up right away but I eventually did put my name in the hat a few days prior after my XYL approved my attendance.

An email was sent out a few days prior with instructions to meet at pretty much the same place we did for the Boulder County Fair parade this past summer. While I did participate in that event, and a whitewater event, I’ve upgraded my ham equipment for service.

This time I was going to bring:
– a chest harness so its not awkward finding a place to clip my radio while not having the antenna inches from my skin and having 5 watts of 2 meter RF go through me
– a new waterproof Yaesu VX-6 that I manually programmed, set to lower power since our repeater was less than a 1/4 mile away
– a ball-point pen
– printout of the net instructions, parade route, and other pertinent materials
– water
– a snack
– layers of clothing including a hat
– a video camera
– a backup chest harness with another pen and an extra HT + backup battery for it

I also made a cheesy ID badge for myself so that my fellow club members would recognize me by my call sign.

I set all these things out the night before, making sure I charged my HT’s.

On parade day, my XYL and I drove up to Longmont and found parking right where we were going to meet. We walked over to the Luna Cafe and got breakfast which consisted of coffee and delicious breakfast croissants. Being near the park, we heard some of the bands practicing ahead of the parade.

It was close to 8:45am so we walked back over to where we parked and noticed a familiar bunch of the friendliest guys you’ll ever meet with reflector vests on. Everyone was chatting and enjoying the bluebird Colorado day and then we were briefed on our assignment and given our tactical location which were along the parade route.

After my XYL took a few photos of the group, we all hit the bricks and walked to our stations – basically on each corner of the parade route.

The net officially started and as the parade moved along its route, with each tactical station relaying when the head and tail of the parade passed them.

The parade itself was uneventful in terms of our need to relay emergencies and messages. There were of plenty of other volunteers from other volunteer agencies in Longmont assisting with the parade, which was quite long probably due to the beautiful weather. It seemed that everybody from Longmont was out in costume.

After the tail of the parade passed us and we notified Net Control, we moved 1 block over to Main Street for a little bit. Then when the tail of the parade passed, we followed along behind noting the hams that were at their tactical locations.

Finally, we got back to our gathering spot, turned in the vests and said our goodbyes.

Overall I had a great time serving with my club. The turnout of hams was great which was nice because we were stationed in pairs which made it fun to have a buddy. My choice of gear worked out well, especially the new chest harness to help keep things organized and available on a moments notice rather than reaching into my backpack like the last event.

There’s a call for volunteers for the next event that we support – the Turkey Trot, and of course, I volunteered to help.

73,

ae0rs