Protocol for workers at turns (worker stations)

[Don Kennedy]

In the PHA, we have the corner workers calling out every car number as they pass. With a hill like Duryea, there can be 4 or 5 cars on the hill at the same time and it causes alot of "traffic" on the net. I think some of it is unnecessary, to call every turn. Particularily on some portions of the hill where you can see and hear the cars for 2 or 3 turns. We could probably call out specific turns amounting to about half the corners and still have a good handle on what's happenning. I'm curious what your procedure is for tracking cars on the hill.
Thanks.

[KevinGale]

We call each car by each checkpoint. However we never have more than 3 cars on the course at the same time. We have too much distance between checkpoints to safely run more cars on the course. We have multiple places where a car can go off out of sight and hearing of any checkpoint. So we need a fairly large buffer to detect a car is missing.

We usually have 6 or 7 checkpoints on a hill (not counting start and finish) but we would probably need to almost double that number to be able run 4 or 5 cars.

[Don Kennedy]

The only hill of yours that I'm familiar with is Burke. Would you only have 6 or 7 on that hill? The way PHA runs, we'd probably have 20 or more!

[KevinGale]

Pretty much every hill except Philo has 7 official checkpoints. Philo has 6.

However in recent years we have added a check 1A to Okemo and Burke. Those checks however were added to deal with hikers, bikers and problem spectators.

With 20 checkpoints I can understand how you could run 4 or 5 cars at once. I can also see how checkpoint chatter might be a problem.

In truth we run two cars at a time. However there is a small overlap where there are three cars on the course. One car is usually approaching finish just as we are starting the next car.

[sachilles]

Even with as few radio points as we run, we still occasionally get people walking over each other on the radio, plus the occasional loud car drowns out the broadcast if the person keys the radio at the wrong point.

That'd be a lot of workers if we had a pair of folks at every corner.

[sdwarf36]

Don, I got into heated discussions last time out there about the differences between how our clubs run the workers. It took some explaining to some that "checks" dont alway mean "corners"-as it was when I ran Pagoda. We may have 7 turns + 3/4 of a mile between checks-but not all corners are "epic". A bad turn that has a good possibilty of wrecks warrant a check point. (some hills have have back to back corner/checks-because its needed.)
As far as workers talking over each other, I had a bad incident at Pagoda 2 years back-michele caught it on video while working check 4? (start of the straight). A car spun at the turn after Oh shit. It was called to control-but I was called by 3 turns-finally red flagged at oh shit-I could still see the smoke from the car's spin.200ft from where it happened--WAY to close. The problem-your radios don't duplex. One person talks and that all you hear. Our system is like talking on the phone-multiple people can talk over each other. Someone can scream REDFLAG over someone calling in a car going past a check.
Another advantage of calling cars by-you can tell the pace of the car-and if its slowing-or being gained on. Silence and you would never know.
I can see your point at your hills-I can clear your checks about every 15 seconds!

[Rabbit Farmer]

Image of the hills. The numbers are the corners, and the "C" numbers are the checkpoints.

Steve







Link as image wider than forums allow.... http://www.hillclimb.org/events/burke/b ... ad-map.jpg

[Chief Geek]

I've been a NEHA worker for about 2 years and this weekend I worked an event with a different organizing body, and different procedures, for the first time.

With this new experience, I've become convinced that each car needs to be called out every 30-45 sec. It was amazing how quickly things came unglued with a "don't transmit unless something goes wrong" style comm protocol.

The nice thing about the 40-ish second cadence is that you can "feel" when a car is due but the comm traffic it isn't overwelming. I'm sure I'm not the only NEHA worker that starts getting antsy when a car-call is overdue by more than a few seconds. Doubling the number of checkpoints (halving the time between call-outs) sounds awfully frenetic to me.

Paul

[Don Kennedy]

Thanks for all your input.
I found out last night that this past Duryea, for the first time, they started calling at only selected points, which I think is good for our hill. If you call every corner\worker station, there's a call every 10 seconds or so, way too much. And as stated, our radios aren't duplex.
We can ceertainly learn from each other.

[walterclark]

Hi Don,

As has been pointed out, our checkpoints (usually 7) are fewer than the corners (30ish), so overloading anyone, like the control person or the comm system with car number calls isnt an issue.

Also, as Sherm pointed out our system is full duplex. This has as its primary advantage that no one user can easily or completely dominate the system which is the major single point of failure in simplex systems (particularly wireless ones).

A few short years ago we began questioning the system we use and wondered if something better might be available and affordable. We use a twisted pair wire laid off the edge but alongside the road, into which a number of telephone like headsets connect. The systems (we have 2 clubs that have separate but very similar systems for the different hills) were based on WW2 era hardware and 1800's technology and they were getting either very weak or unreliable - or both.

I spent some time looking into replacement systems, primarily wireless as that would certainly speed setup and breakdown at the hills. I know a few folks tried employing some wireless systems operated in parallel with the old systems, with mixed results. The short of it is I found nothing that could be depended on, and was low cost. The twisted wire backbone is still the best solution for us. Even given the risk that a car going off can break or otherwise damage the wire and sever top-bottom communications...To this issue I should point out that even with an open or short in the wire, communications is usually still available below the problem and above it - just not across it. We also employ intermittent use of portable business band radios as a backup and in order to extend the communications to the site of an incident.

To address the issues with the system owned by the KSCC (of which I am am member) of aging, unreliable and unrepairable hardware, 3 seasons ago I designed and delivered a couple prototype replacement headsets that eliminated several technology and maintenance limits inherent to the 1800's carbon mic powered hardware we were using. We used these new units at the Start and Finish of several hills to prove the concept, then I made sets for the other stations of the mountains that use the KSCC owned hardware. We kept the wire - which is much-much newer than WW2. We used the system complete all last year. Over the winter the second club (SCCNH) that owns hardware asked me to build them similar headsets to use on their wire. Both clubs and users seem happy with the upgrade.