Saturday May 2nd, 2026 the Sumner County Spay Neuter Alliance held their annual Pedal for Paws event. The Sumner County ARES in collaboration with the Sumner County Amateur Radio Association provided Radio Communications support for the event.
14, 30, 45 and 62 mile courses make up the 4 different length bike events. The courses traverse open roads, nothing is shut down for the riders except the parking lot where the Start/Finish Line is. Each of the 4 courses have a SAG, Support and Gear, unit following the tail rider. There are 4 rest stops along the various courses. These rest stops have snacks and refreshments as well as bathroom facilities.
Each of the Rest Stops as well and the SAG Units are all manned with Radio Operators as well as Event Staff. The Radio Operators provide radio communications for the event while the Event Staff provide the refreshments in the case of a rest stop or drivers and repairs in the case of a SAG vehicle.
In 2025 there were major communications issues with the SAG vehicles due to some of the rural areas the bike riders traverse as well as the topography. This year SAG Boxes were built to mitigate that issue. These new SAG boxes contained Radioddity DB-25D Pro radios along with 40ah LifePo4 batteries and Mag Mount antennas. 1 of the radios were generously donated by Radioddity. 2 others were purchased directly from Radioddity at a significant discount off the retail price. The 4th was a personally owned radio donated by Brian, NG2S. A great Thanks goes out to Radioddity for their generous donation in support of the Sumner County ARES Program.
24 Radio Operators volunteered their time to support the Pedal for Paws Event. Of those volunteers we had representation from 4 different radio clubs and at least 5 different ARES Groups from the surrounding area. Much of the credit for this type of cross promotion goes out to the Middle Tennessee Ham Radio Co-op. Without their efforts to bring many of the local groups together there would be no collaboration.
Sumner County ARES, Davidson County ARES, Rutherford County ARES, Wilson County ARES and Trousdale County ARES were all in attendance. Not only were the ARES group members in attendance but also where the EC’s from said groups. This was a first for me, to have this many EC’s supporting another group was outstanding!
Sumner County Amateur Radio Association, Nashville Amateur Radio Club, Stones River Amateur Radio Club, Wilson County Amateur Radio Club and the Robertson County Radio Club were all represented.
The weather could not have been better for the event. It started off cool and warmed up a bit as the afternoon hours arrived. Radio traffic started out heavy as the race began but slowed and things settled in. It was an active net for sure. The log is 7 pages long. That is a lot of radio traffic. That is a good thing. It just goes to show how effective and beneficial we can be at these sort of events. From the morning roll call over the radio to the SAG vehicle locations, Rest stop refreshment restocking, rider locations, rider support needs to information needed by the race director, injuries, whatever it is we are there to pass the traffic!
We had enough volunteers this year that Rest Stop 3 and 4 setup HF stations to have some HF fun during the event. Sure, the radio comms are serious but we still need to have fun, otherwise why do we do it. There were also some 2 meter contacts made by Rest Stop 3! It was a great day and fun was had by all! APRS Digipeaters were deployed at both Rest Stop 3 and 4 to get more APRS coverage around the geographic area of the race courses. Rest Stop 4 was fully powered by battery with solar charging. Along with the APRS Digi at Rest Stop 4 APRS was also monitored on screen but not iGated. Starlink was also deployed with battery power since there was no cell coverage at this location. We took the opportunity to bring out lots of equipment and test out or gear for the dreaded emergency off grid scenario.
At the end of the day some lessons were learned and this is a good thing. If you learn nothing then you have wasted an opportunity and have not looked deep enough. Overall the event was a huge success and everyone had fun. If I could clone the event and rerun it every year as it ran this year I would be happy!
| W4JDM, Jon | K5KRJ, Kendall | KZ4L, Bill | AA8TJ, Steve |
| K4VVA, Mike | KR4DXL, Ben | NZ4K, Mike | NG2S, Brian |
| KR4TNR, Kevin | W4BXR, Glenn | KA6PYE, Jeff | Russ P. |
| W4HBZ, Brad | Alicia H. | Brandon C. | W4WWF, Dan |
| KE4APG, Eugene | KD4SAH, Steve | KG4SFB, Gary | WA4YQC, Richard |
| K4OZE, Vincent | KN4VCW, Jason | W4PJA, Paul | K0BW, Jack |
| N0JLF, Jesse |
