COMMUNITY SERVICE

RAGBRAI GUTTENBURG, IOWA
July 30, 2005


Bob and John Hartmann at radio control center.
(click on picture to enlarge)

Each year the Des Moines Register newspaper sponsors RAGBRAI, which is a weeklong bicycle ride for thousands of participants across the state of Iowa. A different route is selected each year and is begun by the bikers dipping their rear wheel into the Missouri River on the west side of Iowa and ends by dipping the front wheel into the Mississippi River on the east side of the state. The trip is over 500 miles long, with bikers staying in villages along the way which are approximately 90 miles apart. The host communities go all out to welcome and see to the biker needs each night. There were about 10,000 bikers in 2005.

This year the trip ended in Guttenberg, Iowa, which is a small town in the northeast corner of the state. With all the riders arriving needing to find transportation for themselves via cars and buses, managing their gear and bicycles created quite a logistic and traffic problem.

John Hartmann, WA0LMH is a local Guttenberg ham radio operator who attended planning meetings with Guttenberg community leaders and law enforcement persons. John suggested ham radio operators from local radio clubs in Iowa and southwest Wisconsin be used for communication assistance and he coordinated the recruitment of eight more hams to assist with the final day.

John and his brother Bob manned the control center from a tent near where the bikers dipped their wheels in the Mississippi River. The remaining hams were deployed in parking lots and strategic street intersections around the city. Radio communications were routed through the Dubuque 147.24 repeater. When a serious bus accident occurred on the south edge of the city, all emergency personnel were busy with the accident, leaving the hams to take over traffic management and also to keep the communications net in the city intact.

Amateur radio operators from the area helping John Hartmann were: Larry Pensel W0UST; Bob Crippes WB0WSE; Bill Theisen WT0V; Mark Krolick N0WLU; Jack Izzard KF9TN; Bob Lewis WA9REL; Rich Weimer AA9KZ and Roy Shaver N9NUZ.

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