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[MountainMan]

OK, so i reached out to other members of the ARES orginization in the Ouray area to find out more about the repeaters and any other tips they might have. Here is the most recent info I have from Ron, who is the Pres. of the Montrose Amateur Radio Club.

Taft;

Your event is the weekend after the Hard Rock Run this year, so the area repeaters should be charged back up and ready to go for you. Here are the area repeaters and the areas they cover.

147.270 + 123.0 PL Engineer Mt. located SE of Ouray. This machine sets at over 13K feet, so it covers a large area of the San Juan's. It is linked to Buffalo Mt.

147.375 + 156.7 PL Kendal Mt. located just SE of Silverton (you can see the repeater from downtown Silverton) covers areas S. and E. of Silverton. It is linked on South to Durango and into N. New Mexico, and to Buffalo Mt.

145.250 - 127.3 PL Buffalo Mt. NE of Silverton, the hub repeater between Engineer and Kendal

Talk on any of these machines and you talk on them all. Coverage is most of the San Juan range. Of course in these rugged mountains there will be dead spots but for the most part they work pretty well. This system is funded by the Hard Rock Run folks.

Not knowing how your event is organized, but would assume that you have a base of operations in one of the towns. Good place for a base station accessible to the race boss and their staff. Then make sure you have a Ham equipped mobile or two with each touring group as "Safety Cars". Here you will need good mobile units, handy talkies are pretty much useless in these mountains.

The weekend of your event a lot of our folks who have been involved in the Hard Rock Run will be in Utah for an event there that we help with every year. But the repeaters should serve you well. All of our repeaters are solar powered, so we replace the batteries every year just before the race, thus the system should be in great shape for your event.

Please keep me informed and I will try to be of any help that I can.

Have fun in the "Switzerland of America".

73, Ron KC0GKZ