January 2nd 06, 10:32 PM
posted to rec.radio.amateur.policy
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Hey, Steve! Rose Parade Ham Club to disband after being rebuffed by parade officials.
No Roses wrote:
http://www.torra.us/index.html
Ham radio operators to skip Rose Parade
Ham radio operators to skip Rose Parade
Pasadena Star News
By Gene Maddaus , Staff Writer
PASADENA -- A pair of ham radio operators were lugging equipment onto the
grounds of Tournament House in preparation for last year's parade when they
were stopped by a "senior Tournament official.'
"This senior Tournament person came absolutely unglued,' reports Allen
Hubbard, a board member of the Tournament of Roses Radio Amateurs. "He was
accusing them of lying to get on the grounds.'
Although they are not officially part of the Tournament of Roses, the radio
amateurs have been providing a communications link along the Rose Parade
route for more than 30 years. Radio operators have routinely "shadowed'
Tournament White Suiters, behaving like a volunteer signal corps straight
out of World War II.
But in the age of cell phones, they have begun to feel unwanted.
This week, the Tournament of Roses Radio Amateurs voted not to participate
in the upcoming parade, after suffering what they perceived to be a series
of indignities.
"This has been building for at least the last four years,' Hubbard said.
For many of the more than 250 club members, the incident at Tournament
House last year was the last straw.
"I think it's come to the end of a run,' said Bill Flinn, the Tournament's
chief operating officer. "We're sorry to see them go.'
Most White Suiters have cell phones, and don't need a radio operator
shadowing their every move. Nextel is a corporate sponsor of the parade,
and has donated a number of phones to the Tournament. That doesn't sit well
with the ham radio operators, who point out that cell phones often lose
reception in areas where ham radios work.
Amateur radio operators also tend to pride themselves on being hobbyists,
and on not being profit-seekers.
"We provide a genuine service to the Tournament,' said Earle Bunker, a club
member for 20 years. "The people we work with the White Suiters are very
much for us. They tell us that. It's somebody farther up the line.'
Bunker, who has traditionally handled ham radios at the post-parade float
viewing, said the radios often come in handy.
"Two years ago a fellow lost his insulin kit,' Bunker said. "Somebody
turned in the kit at one of the gates.'
Radio operators made the connection, and the kit was returned.
The radio group has also tracked floats with global positioning devices and
installed a dozen video cameras up and down the parade route.
"Every year, there's $70,000 worth of private equipment brought in to help
the Rose Parade,' Bunker said. "I think there are some who think they can
do it all with Nextel. I don't think they can.'
Over the years, the group has coordinated its activities from a room inside
Tournament House that acted as a nerve center. But a recent remodeling
transformed the radio room into archive storage. Over the past few years,
the group has had to transmit from a mobile trailer.
"We used to get what we felt was better cooperation,' Hubbard said. "People
on the board have felt that Nextel has put pressure on the Tournament to
get rid of us. They want people using Nextels.'
Representatives of Nextel Communications did not return calls for comment.
The radio group had been negotiating with the Tournament in an effort to
keep the relationship alive. The minutes of a July meeting suggest that at
the time, relations were strained but the radio club remained optimistic
that it could still be useful.
"Time was spent reviewing the TORRA assignments list, clarifying,
confirming and deleting positions,' the minutes state. "Most TOR chairs
will not need shadows since they have Nextels.'
The minutes also suggest that radio operators were left stranded and bored
last year, without a White Suiter and with nothing to do. When Ed
Afsharian, chair of communications and credentialing for the Tournament,
suggested that one radio position be cut, the radio amateurs responded that
the position was so important that an extra operator should be added.
The negotiations finally broke down Sunday, when the radio amateurs' board
voted to back out of the Jan. 1, 2005, parade.
The Tournament will get along without the radio operators this time, Flinn
said, and consider having them back for the 2006 parade. Hubbard said his
wife is looking forward to taking him out for a New Year's Eve party for
the first time in 15 years.
"They say new technology will take care of it, but I don't know,' said
Bunker's wife, Mary Louise, herself a ham operator and a former mayor of
Alhambra. "A lot of gals don't know what good a husband is until he goes on
a business trip.
"It's going to be a real interesting New Year's.'
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