Meeting topics from last night 2026-02-04
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Central Vermont Amateur Radio Club
Feb 5, 2026, 12:02:39 PM (4 days ago) Feb 5
to Central Vermont Amateur Radio Club
Hi all,
Great to see everyone at the meeting last night! Just wanted to give everyone a review of what we discussed provide some info on what our goals are between now and field day.
VT QSO party
The 2026 VT QSO party is this weekend, running from Friday February 6th at 7pm local time (0000z, 2026-02-07) til Sunday Febraury 8th at 6:59pm local time (1159z, 2026-02-08). We encourage those who can to get on the air! CVARC originally planned to host an event, but due to lack of member availability, the weather forecast for this weekend and the fact that we do not have an indoor site to operate, we will be canceling our plans.
Officer Elections
March 2026 is election season for CVARC! Your current officers are:
Patrick Schlott KC1DPM - President & Director (W1BD Trustee)
Chris Knox KI1P - Vice-President
Alan Zaur K1MZM - Secretary
John LaRue K4TSU - Treasurer
The description of officer roles and duties are as follows, taken from Article 5 of the club bylaws:
Section 1. The Officers of CVARC shall be:
President, who shall preside at all meetings of CVARC, appoint committee chairs as needed, rule on procedural matters, and shall act as Chairman of the Board of Directors. He or she shall perform such duties as usually pertain to such office, as well as those assigned by the Board of Directors.
Vice President, who in the absence of the President shall perform the duties of the President, and shall perform such duties as the Board of Directors may assign.
Treasurer, who shall be responsible for the receipt and disbursement of all funds, for the maintenance of proper financial records, and for monitoring compliance with the budget. He or she shall present current statements of receipts and expenditures at all regular meetings of the Board of Directors and at the Annual Meeting of CVARC.
Secretary, who shall issue the “call” to and keep a record of all meetings of the members and the Board of Directors. Copies of the minutes of all meetings of the members and all meetings of the Board of Directors shall be made available to the general membership. The Secretary shall perform such other duties as may be assigned to him or her by the Board of Directors.
Director, who holds an amateur radio license of higher class than Technician, serves as custodian of the club call sign and is responsible for matters dealing with the club’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license and club station.
Section 2. The same person may hold any two or more offices, except the offices of president and treasurer.
If you would like to run for office or run for re-election as an existing officer, please notify the board of directors in writing by emailing con...@w1bd.net. Please submit your intent to run for office by 11:59pm on Wednesday, February 25th. The ballot and survey will be sent out by Saturday, February 28th. The results will be counted during the March meeting on 3/4. Good luck!
Foxhunting
I'm excited to announce that the club's first foxhunt of 2026 will take place Saturday, March 28th starting at 10am. Listen on the national FM foxhunt frequency of 146.565 MHz, somewhere in Orange county, VT. The fox will always be in a publically-accessible location (i.e. not on private property or anywhere you need to pay to enter), and the transmitter will be on for as long as the batteries last - usually 24 hours.
Field Day
Per our discussion, we will attempt to secure the Old Shelter at Hubbard Park in Montpelier for our site this year. Field Day is June 27th and 28th from 2pm Saturday to 2pm Sunday. As is typical, we'll probably plan to setup the day before, so expect details closer to the date. We intend to start planning now, as there aren't many meetings between now and June, and we'd like to operate the same but improve upon last year's setup. An emphasis on ownership of each role as well as public relations were hot topics. Getting these nailed down will be paramount to the success of a larger field day operation, and this will be a good way to use CVARC field day as a proving ground for how well the club communicates internally. We will need people or teams of people for the following:
- Site logistics - securing a site, determining people-oriented resources like toilet/shelter/first aid/water/food/lighting/emergency prep supplies/plans. One of the members of this team (if more than one person) will be the Safety Officer (which nets us a bonus point!)
- Food - we can roll this into site logistics if it makes sense.
- Public outreach - making flyers, securing signage, reaching out to local newspaper/radio/TV, regularly posting on social media
- Information booth - setting up or requesting an educational demonstration related to ham radio, gathering ARRL materials, being the face of the club and interacting with the public as they approach the field day site
- 'Ground' Operational Logistics - Determining power requirements (generator/batteries/DC power supplies/etc), number of transmitters, who is bringing what radio/laptop/keys/headphones/adapters/peripherals/et al, responsible for logging software, cable management
- Networking - Handles all intra-station communications; network cables, switches, routers, internet access if needed, and also displays for waterfalls/scoreboards/schedules (where applicable). Works closely with Ground to ensure operability with logging software and maintain a 'safety backup' of the log in case any stations go down.
- 'Air' Operational Logistics - Coax, antennas, launchers, matchboxes, tuners, wire, rope, which antennas for which band and where each one will go to minimize interference
- Tools - Determines all tools needed to make field day happen and ensures whoever can bring tools is bringing what we need - wire cutters, strippers, crimpers, soldering irons, solder, wire nuts, electrical tape, etc
- Master Scheduler - Determining who is available when and drawing up an operating schedule to maximize use of all available stations - and also ensuring we always have someone available to show the public a station
For some of these roles, you don't need to be the person responsible for what that team is doing - for example, if you're the tools person, you don't need to be the one bringing the tools, but you should figure out what we need and make sure whomever has those tools is bringing them to field day.
This list can be fluid - please make suggestions! If it doesn't make sense to separate roles, we can combine teams, or have one person handle multiple responsibilities. The opposite is also true; we can always divide and conquer if one team/person is handling too much. Let's just be realistic and not sign up for too much. The goal is to basically do field day 2025 but better organized so we can scale the operation in years to come. Very much looking forward to this!
Communications
Many ideas were discussed last night regarding the best way to collaborate off-air as a club:
Google groups
Facebook
Discord - join here (account required) https://discord.gg/hRKxbjQBG (link expires March 7th 2026)
Zoom call or other teleconference
Forums on w1bd.net
I intend to roll this topic into the ballot/survey at the end of the month, but we may want to consider either discord or the forum section of the website to organize field day plans. The latter needs work to get up and running again.
Let's keep the enthusiasm going! See you all next month. Meeting details announced closer to the date.
73,
-Patrick
Great to see everyone at the meeting last night! Just wanted to give everyone a review of what we discussed provide some info on what our goals are between now and field day.
VT QSO party
The 2026 VT QSO party is this weekend, running from Friday February 6th at 7pm local time (0000z, 2026-02-07) til Sunday Febraury 8th at 6:59pm local time (1159z, 2026-02-08). We encourage those who can to get on the air! CVARC originally planned to host an event, but due to lack of member availability, the weather forecast for this weekend and the fact that we do not have an indoor site to operate, we will be canceling our plans.
Officer Elections
March 2026 is election season for CVARC! Your current officers are:
Patrick Schlott KC1DPM - President & Director (W1BD Trustee)
Chris Knox KI1P - Vice-President
Alan Zaur K1MZM - Secretary
John LaRue K4TSU - Treasurer
The description of officer roles and duties are as follows, taken from Article 5 of the club bylaws:
Section 1. The Officers of CVARC shall be:
President, who shall preside at all meetings of CVARC, appoint committee chairs as needed, rule on procedural matters, and shall act as Chairman of the Board of Directors. He or she shall perform such duties as usually pertain to such office, as well as those assigned by the Board of Directors.
Vice President, who in the absence of the President shall perform the duties of the President, and shall perform such duties as the Board of Directors may assign.
Treasurer, who shall be responsible for the receipt and disbursement of all funds, for the maintenance of proper financial records, and for monitoring compliance with the budget. He or she shall present current statements of receipts and expenditures at all regular meetings of the Board of Directors and at the Annual Meeting of CVARC.
Secretary, who shall issue the “call” to and keep a record of all meetings of the members and the Board of Directors. Copies of the minutes of all meetings of the members and all meetings of the Board of Directors shall be made available to the general membership. The Secretary shall perform such other duties as may be assigned to him or her by the Board of Directors.
Director, who holds an amateur radio license of higher class than Technician, serves as custodian of the club call sign and is responsible for matters dealing with the club’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license and club station.
Section 2. The same person may hold any two or more offices, except the offices of president and treasurer.
If you would like to run for office or run for re-election as an existing officer, please notify the board of directors in writing by emailing con...@w1bd.net. Please submit your intent to run for office by 11:59pm on Wednesday, February 25th. The ballot and survey will be sent out by Saturday, February 28th. The results will be counted during the March meeting on 3/4. Good luck!
Foxhunting
I'm excited to announce that the club's first foxhunt of 2026 will take place Saturday, March 28th starting at 10am. Listen on the national FM foxhunt frequency of 146.565 MHz, somewhere in Orange county, VT. The fox will always be in a publically-accessible location (i.e. not on private property or anywhere you need to pay to enter), and the transmitter will be on for as long as the batteries last - usually 24 hours.
Field Day
Per our discussion, we will attempt to secure the Old Shelter at Hubbard Park in Montpelier for our site this year. Field Day is June 27th and 28th from 2pm Saturday to 2pm Sunday. As is typical, we'll probably plan to setup the day before, so expect details closer to the date. We intend to start planning now, as there aren't many meetings between now and June, and we'd like to operate the same but improve upon last year's setup. An emphasis on ownership of each role as well as public relations were hot topics. Getting these nailed down will be paramount to the success of a larger field day operation, and this will be a good way to use CVARC field day as a proving ground for how well the club communicates internally. We will need people or teams of people for the following:
- Site logistics - securing a site, determining people-oriented resources like toilet/shelter/first aid/water/food/lighting/emergency prep supplies/plans. One of the members of this team (if more than one person) will be the Safety Officer (which nets us a bonus point!)
- Food - we can roll this into site logistics if it makes sense.
- Public outreach - making flyers, securing signage, reaching out to local newspaper/radio/TV, regularly posting on social media
- Information booth - setting up or requesting an educational demonstration related to ham radio, gathering ARRL materials, being the face of the club and interacting with the public as they approach the field day site
- 'Ground' Operational Logistics - Determining power requirements (generator/batteries/DC power supplies/etc), number of transmitters, who is bringing what radio/laptop/keys/headphones/adapters/peripherals/et al, responsible for logging software, cable management
- Networking - Handles all intra-station communications; network cables, switches, routers, internet access if needed, and also displays for waterfalls/scoreboards/schedules (where applicable). Works closely with Ground to ensure operability with logging software and maintain a 'safety backup' of the log in case any stations go down.
- 'Air' Operational Logistics - Coax, antennas, launchers, matchboxes, tuners, wire, rope, which antennas for which band and where each one will go to minimize interference
- Tools - Determines all tools needed to make field day happen and ensures whoever can bring tools is bringing what we need - wire cutters, strippers, crimpers, soldering irons, solder, wire nuts, electrical tape, etc
- Master Scheduler - Determining who is available when and drawing up an operating schedule to maximize use of all available stations - and also ensuring we always have someone available to show the public a station
For some of these roles, you don't need to be the person responsible for what that team is doing - for example, if you're the tools person, you don't need to be the one bringing the tools, but you should figure out what we need and make sure whomever has those tools is bringing them to field day.
This list can be fluid - please make suggestions! If it doesn't make sense to separate roles, we can combine teams, or have one person handle multiple responsibilities. The opposite is also true; we can always divide and conquer if one team/person is handling too much. Let's just be realistic and not sign up for too much. The goal is to basically do field day 2025 but better organized so we can scale the operation in years to come. Very much looking forward to this!
Communications
Many ideas were discussed last night regarding the best way to collaborate off-air as a club:
Google groups
Discord - join here (account required) https://discord.gg/hRKxbjQBG (link expires March 7th 2026)
Zoom call or other teleconference
Forums on w1bd.net
I intend to roll this topic into the ballot/survey at the end of the month, but we may want to consider either discord or the forum section of the website to organize field day plans. The latter needs work to get up and running again.
Let's keep the enthusiasm going! See you all next month. Meeting details announced closer to the date.
73,
-Patrick
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