The Network Behind the SAG Vehicle You See

You've seen the vehicles with event stickers and flashing lights patrolling the route. Maybe you've even been the one who needed one—a flat, a bonk, a crash, a call for a ride back to the finish. Within minutes, help showed up.

What you probably haven't seen is the network behind that SAG vehicle: a volunteer team of licensed amateur radio operators from around Northeast Oklahoma—who track every rider on the course, relay real-time reports between rest stops and the command post, and make sure the right kind of help reaches you fast, wherever you are on the route. Each one drives their own vehicle and owns their own radio gear—the event just supplies the identifying stickers so you know who's stopping to help.

They don't do this for money—by federal law, they can't be paid for it, and they wouldn't want to be anyway. Tulsa Amateur Radio Club (TARC) leads the overall communications operation for DAM J.A.M.—the mobile command post, APRS tracking equipment, coordination software, and the know-how and licenses to run it all—and that gear isn't free to build, maintain, or upgrade. A registered 501(c)(3), TARC covers those costs itself, year after year, for DAM J.A.M. and several other Tulsa-area rides.

None of this happens inside one club's borders, either. The repeater that carries DAM J.A.M.'s radio traffic is owned and maintained by the Mayes County Amateur Radio Club and its use is loaned to our group of SAGs for DAM J.A.M. day operations each year. 

That trailer you see at DAM J.A.M. isn't just for bike rides. The same team also operates the W5IAS Super Link System—roughly 16 linked repeaters covering an estimated 50,000 square miles across eastern Oklahoma, southern Kansas, and western Arkansas. It's a separate network from the single repeater DAM J.A.M. relies on day-of, but hams from Mayes County and other surrounding areas regularly take part in it too. Besides public service events like DAM J.A.M., the team provides emergency communications for regional SKYWARN severe weather nets linked directly to the National Weather Service in Tulsa. When you see them at the start line, you're looking at trained emergency communicators, not just a friendly face with a radio.

Zooming out beyond DAM J.A.M. itself, ham radio public service is a cooperative effort, of people and technical equipment. TARC manages the Super Link System together with affiliated clubs, while other regional clubs maintain their own separate repeaters—like the one Mayes County loans us each year—that plug into the day's operation when needed. Your SAG volunteers out on the course come from TARC, MCARC, TRO, and other clubs across Northeast Oklahoma.

In ham radio, especially in service to the community, those club border lines tend to disappear. Service is the drive; neighbors helping neighbors is the credo.

If their work has ever given you peace of mind on the road, here's a simple, tax-deductible way to help keep it running:

👉 gofund.me/heat.poem.size