Amateur Radio and Icom D-Star supporting the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon. How volunteer ham radio operators provide medical communications support using modern digital technology. This talk was presented at ARRL TAPR DCC 2013 in Seattle on Sept 20 2013 Erik Westgard NY9D www.14567.org

1. Leading with Digital at a Top Ten
Marathon
How for more than 20 years 140+ Minnesota Radio Amateurs
have led the emergency and medical communications at the
Medtronic® Twin Cities Marathon
Erik Westgard, NY9D
9/19/13 ewestgard@att.net
Volunteer Medical Communications Coordinator,
Medtronic Twin Cites Marathon
Red White and Boom Half Marathon
http://www.14567.org

2. 1. New York City Marathon
47,000 registered participants in 2012
2. Chicago Marathon
37,455 finishers in 2012
3. Honolulu Marathon
24,413 finishers in 2012
4. Marine Corps Marathon
23,515 finishers in 2012
5. Boston Marathon
21,544 finishers in 2012
6. LA Marathon
18,729 finishers in 2012
7. Walt Disney World Marathon
13,467 finishers in 2012
8. Philadelphia Marathon
11,553 finishers in 2012
9. Twin Cities Marathon
8781 finishers in 2012
10. Houston Marathon
7637 finishers in 2012
https://everymove.org/blog/the-10-largest-marathons-in-
united accessed 9/19/13
The Most Beautiful Urban Marathon in
America®
12,000 Marathon starters, 10,000 10 Mile starters, 200,000 spectators

3. Medical Personnel on the Course
The marathon has one of the best medical teams in the industry
and is led by Medical Director, Dr. Bill Roberts. On average,
one to three percent of every 1,000 entrants will seek medical
assistance along the course or at the finish line. With that in
mind, 300 medical personnel are positioned along the course
and at the finish line. All medical personnel can be identified by
their orange vests and all are trained to assist in medical care. A
medical team will be assigned to each aid station along the
course. There are also medical volunteers stationed at many of
the mile and half-mile marks of the race course.
Communications personnel in yellow shirts are paired
with the medical volunteers to provide access to mobile
medical teams and ambulance services. Seriously injured
or ill runners will be transported to the nearest hospital from
any of the Medical Aid Stations on the course, and well runners
who drop out of the race will be taken to the finish area.
Medical volunteers will have first aid supplies at every medical
location.
What is our Job?
https://www.tcmevents.org/events/medtronic_twin_cities_marathon_we
ekend/marathon/medical_information/
Accessed 8/13/2013

4. Simplified Event Communication Structure
Race Director
Incident
Commander
Race Operations
Medical
Director
Medical EMS
Course Marshals
Other race officials
Med Volunteers
Amateur
Radio
EMS
Fire
Etc.
Event
Communications
Center
Normal
Reporting
In a declared emergency
the Incident Commander
takes over
Under normal operations, the event communications center provides radio and other channels
to support the event. In an emergency, all resources are available to the Incident Commander
Best practice:
An Incident
Action Plan
(IAP) is on file

5. Marathon Patient Flow
Chest Pain
Ice pack, etc
All other
911+ Location
tracking
(+MNTRAC etc.)
Location Tracking
(admit/discharge)
Personal Health
Record download

6. Hams as third backup system
SAG wagon dispatching
Injured runner tracking- packet
Vehicle position reporting (APRS(r))
Family Medical Database
Med Tent Admit/Discharge
MTCM Medical Team Amateur Radio Project Evolution
1985 1995 2005 2015
D-Star and 802.11 for scale >
Personal Health Record
Physician Order Entry
Tablets
Ham dispatchers
Hospital tracking >
NIMS/ICS
www.14567.org 7/7/2013

7. Aid
Stations
Net1
Data
+
22 Water
Stops/
120 Yellow
Shirts
5 + 4 voice
5+1 D-Star
Repeaters
911 service
Rented UHF
5G Mesh backbone
Net Controls- distributed
Nets 1-3
D-Star data entry/query
On-Course Med Director
Finish Line EMS Dispatch
Database
Net 4 (course inter-tie)
Medical Ch.1 Control
Medical Director
Family Medical/
Med Tent
Bus Drop-off
iPads
IP phones
Marathon Course Medical Communications 2012
Race Weekend General Principles:
Yellow shirts (hams) backstop medical operations - report and notify
Injured /dropped out runner location data flows to the server
Course tactical operations are autonomous (ICS)
Finish Line
802.11g/n protocol
2-3 D-Star Uplinks
802.11n/OLSR mesh link (Finish line to St Paul EOC)
Net2 Net3 Medical Tent Family Medical

9. News for 2010- iPads for check
in – hospital tent
New for 2011 – IP Phones
New for 2012- Mobile apps Family Medical Information

10. Runner tracking and situation reports – TrivnetDB in the main
Comm Center at “Course Medical” Net Control – note rented
UHF radios + Ham “Dispatchers” on Course and Finish
medical channels

11. 2003-2012 Medtronic Twin Cities
Marathon
Finish Line Comm Ctr
Net 4 Control
TCM Ch1/Ch 6 (UHF)
Finish area dispatch
Med Tent Med Info Tent (x6)
Amateur Radio Medical Communications Support System
PDA 802.11n
(Security, MDs)
Ipad 802.11n
Check-In
Ipad 802.11n
Discharge
Laptops 802.11a
Win XP
Bus Drop-off
Station
802.11n
Laptops
Trailer
Linux /MySQL
Trivnetdb 2.0
802.11n
Web
D-Star
Net 3+4/Voice
Ramsey Cty EOC
D-Star
Net 2+4/Voice
Hennepin Van
D-Star
Net 1+4/Voice
North Memorial
D-Star
D-Star DD IP was
primary
in 2008+Com Ctr x3
Laptop 802.11g
Win XP
Laptop 802.11n
Records
Mile
1-19
Mile
23-26
Mile
20-22
Net Control
+ 6-8 carts

12. Six overlapping DD mode systems provide reliable, web app friendly
high speed data (TCP/IP) coverage for the core Twin Cities Metro

13. www.14567.org D-STAR MSP 8/13 DD Mode
Ham Radio Trailers, County/State Vans
Trivnetdb Database +web front end
ID-1 Radios – data /application uplinks
ID-1 Radio
Users (remote)
links to trailer
Mining ARC
(Ramsey)
@280 feet
90kbps 90kbps
Local
Laptops
Via 802.11g
Erik Westgard. NY9D
Linux System
Citadel, DNAT
DSTAR Controller
and Data Repeater
Minneapolis
South (MSP, MOA)
@200 feet
DSTAR Controller
and Data Repeater
Linux System
Citadel. DNAT
DSTAR Controller
and Data Repeater
Linux System
Citadel, DNAT,
St. Paul
One (State EOC, MDH)
@260 feet
Linux System
Citadel, DNAT,
DSTAR Controller
and Data Repeater
Minneapolis
East (Hennepin)
@260 feet
ID-1
Gateway
DSTAR Controller
and Data Repeater
MPLS N
@290 feet
Linux System
Citadel, DNAT,
Packet
DSTAR Controller
and Data Repeater
MNWash *
Bayport @600’
ID-1
ID-1 ID-1

14. Icom D-Star DD Mode + DNAT
RP-1/2D
ID-1
Linux
Appliance
DNAT
Other services
Packet
Website
Citadel
Links
OLSR
ID-1
Fields not in order: DCall Rcall1 G Rcall2 G SCall Payload
Trivnetdb
Server
ID-1
ID-1
Ethernet
Database and or Internet
Stock DD RP unit is a simplex Ethernet bridge using callsign encapsulation. It supports one
to one for ID-1s, but multiple connects to the repeater Ethernet. If you run multiple subnets,
and DNAT on the back end appliance, multiple ID-1-ID-1 user (TCP/IP) sessions are possible
With DNAT, all ID-1 users (L3)
can reach the server, and each other
“G”

16. New Web Interface- Trivnetdb
Missing /dropped out/ill runner
web runner lookup and update
Runner location only- non
HIPAA

17. Racesafe Proposed Integration 1.0
irunsafe.com
trivnetdb in
the TCM
data trailer
API
Amateur Family Medical
Information Tent agents (6-8)
Either a single
integrated
view or windows to both/all apps
TCM Race
Timing Web
MDs
Medical
admissions
Command centers
Query + updates
Events +
Timestamps
Part 97 Requirements:
Non HIPAA event view,
API feed to trivnetdb
EMR
PHR
data
Mobile
devices

18. MNSTPMNAUGMPLS-N
MNWASH
MPLSS
MPLSE STPONE
D-Star DD Mode
Disaster Nodes
100kb no Internet
Citadel / trivnetdb
Minneapolis
Red Cross
MNEOC
MDH
5G Mesh 802.11a
Open WRT
Colors
Blue- DD Mode
Orange 5G
Purple- both
or
or
ISP
MNRAM
TwinsLAN 2.0 – 802.11a Mesh Networking
Augsburg is the hub
OLSR routing protocol
Some D-Star sites may join the backbone
3mb/sec
Mesh/OLSR 2013

19. Explorer 8
Default
Timeout
Ubiquity 5G 2 mile path NanoStation >NanoStation

20. Case Study
• Pandemic Flu or Anthrax
• Need a vaccination/treatment station in
two hours for 20,000 people in a public
building
• Need to track who got vaccinated, adverse
reactions and vaccine supplies/delivery
out of region
• Massive “buzz” going on- infrastructure
and transportation disrupted

21. Cellular Jamming
http://www.bomb-jammers.net/?m=201305 Accessed 9/19/13

22. Lessons Learned
• Served agency alignment is key- wear their
badges – “embedded”
• Focus on the mission
• Data is the coin of the realm
• There is an app for that
• Think scale and pre staged infrastructure
• Being prepared for the last conflict is
unhelpful- shadows, go kits, slow data
modes, etc.