Speaker

April 22, 2025: Gerry Walsh KB6OOC: The Angeles Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run

The Angeles Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run is a 100 mile long ultra-marathon, traversing much of the San Gabriel Mountains above the Northern cities of the San Gabriel Valley. It has been run nearly every year for almost 40 years. The 100 mile distance is traversed on foot by runners in 18 to 36 hours. There is virtually no cell phone service on the course to connect 15 aid stations to each other or to emergency medical services. That is where ham radio became indispensable. Gerry Walsh, KB6OOC, has been involved in this effort almost from the beginning. He will join us to tell the story at the April 2025 Pasadena Radio Club Meeting.

Gerry Walsh (KB6OOC) got his amateur radio license in 1986 while he was an electronics engineer student at Pasadena City College and studying under Don Wilson (K6RKE), who was a teacher at PCC and the advisor for the PCC Amateur Radio Club. Gerry completed his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering degree at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona in 1994 and his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering degree at Cal Poly Pomona in 1998. He has been continuously employed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1988 and works in the Ground Communications Systems Section for the Deep Space Network. In his free time he enjoys maintaining the Calnet System amateur radio club repeaters, hiking and backpacking, and playing softball.