A Communications Unit Leader (COML) at the 2016 Boston Marathon produced the following report on the application and performance of two ICRIs that were loaned to the marathon’s coordinators:
Before the start of the race we patch the Start Line and Finish Area repeaters together over the ICRI so everyone throughout the course can hear the count-down for each wave of runners and anticipate their arrival at various mile marker.
There were several occasions were some of the medical and logistics people got on the wrong zone or channel, we quickly patched them over to the correct channel to get their message across, after which they were directed to the right zone/channel.
We used the second ICRI unit to set-up a separate course ops channel for the race officials that would allow them the ability to talk to “all channels” in the event they needed to make a course-wide announcement, such as a course disruption, diversion, weather emergency, etc.
Overall the system worked well and keep radio communications between the various disciplines operating smoothly and help protect over 33,000 runners.
If you would like additional information on the ICRI, please visit www.c-at.com/ICRI or contact us at at info@c-at.com