The Cherokee Ultra is a little over a month away. Bright and early at 6am on July 19th to about 11am the 20th, to be exact. If you are reading this, I hope you decide to volunteer to help out with the event. We (MCARES) have been asked to staff all 10 aid stations this year. That is a big jump from the 3 that were staffed last year. The staffing assignments will be broken into shifts of roughly 9-12 hours each.
That being said, we still need more volunteers. Get the word out on all of the nets and in your ham radio circles. Minimum requirements are an amateur radio license, an HT and sufficient batteries, and it would be beneficial to also have a mobile with sufficient battery also. An external antenna is recommended but not required. APRS via RF with client software will be used (mainly for messaging) but is not a requirement to volunteer for this event. Any interested person can contact me directly at any of the below-listed email. If you would like more information on the event, contact me and i will be happy to answer any questions and provide the information that is currently available. If you have a friend who is not a licensed operator who would like to help out, let me know ASAP. Non-licensed volunteers can be scheduled alongside their licensed friends and can be of great help with logging and a second set of ears. I just need to know who they are and who to schedule them with.
Also, if you visit this link you will find the Runner’s Handbook from last year. The locations with coordinates for each aid station are listed, with the exception of Smithfield. Take a look at the aid station locations and pick out 2 or 3 that you would like to work. I will use this information in forming the final assignments. All of the stations are easily accessible by car with the exception of a couple that will require high clearance to get to. Those exceptions are: Waucheesi and Coker Creek Campsite (aka, the mouth of Coker Creek), with Coker Creek Campsite being the worst. Coker Creek Campsite is also the hardest of the 10 stations to navigate to. I have a team already in mind for this station, but if I do not get more volunteers for the event as a whole this will be the first station to be scratched from the list and that team will be assigned elsewhere.
With the lack of volunteers at present, the shifts are looking to be more along the lines of 2 shifts of ~12 hours each. This does not include travel time to/from the aid stations. Some of the volunteers that have already signed up have asked about camping prior to or after the close of their shift. Most of the stations are located at Day Use Only locations. With the course being almost exclusively through National Forest lands, there are ample tent camping locations and a few campgrounds with camper slips within a short drive of the stations. Whether or not you decide to camp is up to you. Gee Creek Campground in Delano and the dispersed sites along Spring Creek Road are all close for the stations located along the Hiwassee Corridor. For the Tellico area stations, there is a KOA just outside of Tellico Plains on Mecca Pike and Top of the World RV campground roughly 8 miles south of town on TN-68.
I thank all of those who have already volunteered, and I thank you for reading this far. In summation, there will be an in-depth plan distributed prior to the event and will have the individual assignments and shifts listed. There will also be a pre-meeting in the days before the event. Depending on everyone’s schedules, this may be an online meeting. This is a large event and will only grow larger with each passing year.
Thank you all again,
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Caleb Lynn KQ4QCJ
Emergency Coordinator
Monroe County Amateur Radio Emergency Service