Welcome to the home of the Burlington Amateur Radio Club, of Burlington, Vermont! We are an ARRL affiliated club Special Services club. We also support the American Red Cross of Northern VT. The Red Cross has for many years graciously allowed us to call their building home, in Burlington, as our Club meeting space. We are still working on a new Emergency Communications Center/W1KOO Club station which has been on hold.  Some of our club members are also Red Cross Volunteers.  More to come.

REPEATER PHOTOS BELOW -  Top row is Mt Mansfield W1KOO/VHF, W1IMD UHF, Bottom row is UVM Redstone Campus, Burlington  W1KOO VHF/UHF.  See "Repeaters" page.

Our AUGUST BARC meeting is currently planned for Saturday, August 17 at 10:00 at the Sandbar State Park unless otherwise updated in the meantime.  This would be a combination "Parks on the Air" event and grilling hamburgers/hot dogs, etc. for lunch in the process.  End time for the operating event would be around 4 PM.

Stay tuned for more information.

Don't forget the St Albans Amateur Radio Club HAMFEST on Saturday, August 10. I'm not seeing anything yet on their Website...Will followup.

More to come in the meantime.

Hope you can join us!

Ed Guild W1OKH/W1KOO

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REMINDER:  Our Wednesday Night Roundtable is on Terry Mountain...

145.490 MHz, Minus Duplex (-), and PL 123 Hz. We have had good nets so far over the past few weeks but are still missing some regulars. Terry Mountain is a repeater with great coverage but very low activity unless there's a major RACES activation. It is handheld friendly on our side of the lake as it is looking right at us, similar to our W1KOO Redstone location in Burlington. It is located by WPTZ's old transmitter location in Peru, NY. Amateurs from any location in our area are welcome to join us for this informal social activity. (Get us on the air.) Feel free to monitor and ragchew on Terry Mountain. I have a receiver on it full time along with W1KOO Mt Mansfield (146.940 MHz (-), PL 100 Hz,W1IMD Mt Mansfield 447.175 MHz,(-), PL 110.9 Hz - NFMRA Statewide Analog Network and W1CTE Fleming School. (146.850 MHz, (-), PL 100 Hz) (Still needs a repair visit as soon as able to. TX running on just the exciter at 1 watt. New 2m/70 cm antenna in the works as well.)  We could use more operators routinely monitoring repeaters over the summer for emergency calls from hikers, motorists in cellular lacking areas, along with new hams getting on the air for the first time, visitors, etc.   

For awareness, our New York friends run their weekly "Health and Welfare" net on Thursday nights on Lyon Mountain at 19:30 hours. (147.285, (+), PL 123 Hz.  They run a couple of rounds of comments and then try a digital message using FLDIGI afterward for whoever wants to participcate. (Modes are MT63-2000L or something else popular like THOR 22.  MT63 is being used for quarterly NY RACES Hospital Drills.) 

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Still keeping this posted....

The antennas were removed the W1KOO repeater site at UVM Redstone Water Tower on Saturday, April 20th thanks to Mike N1FBZ, Dave W1HRG and family help.  This was per the request from the Burlington Water Department for structural work and repainting of the Water Tower after many years

of service. W1KOO has been there for almost 50 years without interruption.  We do not know how long this process with take at this point, but the hope is that we will be back in service sometime later this summer.  It is possible that our antenna situation may be significantly improved in this process.  We are looking at a temporary antenna down below on the race-way but that option is still to be determined.  

After getting permission from New York RACES, we have access within reason to the Terry Mountain Repeater on 145.490 MHz, Minus Duplex, PL of 123 Hz as part of our strategy to continue local repeater ACTIVITY for the Burlington regional area.  Please be respectful as we are guests on the New York side of the lake here.  We ran our first Wednesday night 8 PM Roundtable on April 24th with good participation from both BARC and local New York hams.  (Normally active with the Northern New York Emergency Service Nets on Whiteface Mt....Info below.)   This will continue forward for the time being.  Get your radios programmed and join us when possible.

Mt Mansfield VHF and UHF (NFMRA connected) are operating normally.  Due to the smaller antennas (Photo above) and a strong Broadcast RF environment, handheld radios are generally not favorable unless in sight of the antennas and running 5 watts minimum.  Base Station and Mobile rigs running 25-50 watts are preferred for operating through Mt. Mansfield.  This would be a good time to upgrade if your only radio is a handheld.

We have a repeater at Fleming School licensed to Center for Technology Essex which is W1CTE on 146.850 MHz, Minus Duplex with a PL of 100 Hz.  Near term, the power amplifier needs to be replaced as the GE Master II transmitter is currently running at very low power.  A Motorola MTR2000 is undergoing preparation for converting over to a newer generation repeater, similar to W1KOO Redstone. (Photo above) We also have a new 2 Meter/440 MHz repeater quality Hustler antenna of which we need to work through the approval process for installation.  Competing priorities have delayed getting this work done over the past couple of years or so.  It's time now to seriously make this happen. (Still trying to bend time to make this happen...Actually looking for cooler WX and getting some major family priorities resolved. Ed) 

The HF bands are pretty hot with the favorable sunspot cycle reaching its peak sometime next year.  If you haven't upgraded to General or Extra Class, this summer would be a good time to get going on that.  You don't need big antennas or an expensive "Contest Radio" to have a good time.

It's important that locally we stay socially connected and active with this wonderful hobby of ours. 

In other news, 

• SEE our VE Sessions page for an update for the VE Exams at the Red Cross Blood Center in Burlington on the SECOND FRIDAY of the MONTH. (June 9)  

  • Clifford Lang, AB1WG, is the contact point person for registration and info.   Be sure to contact Cliff FIRST as opposed to just showing up.

• The "St Albans Amateur Radio Club (STARC) runs VE Sessions generally on the Third Saturday of the Month.  Here is a link to their webpage.  Be sure to check the schedule similar to the Red Cross VE Exams.

Don't forget the 8:00 PM Wednesday night net on W1KOO, 146.610, --600 KHz,  PL 100 Hz. TERRY MOUNTAIN WA2LRE 145.490 MHz, -600 KHz, PL 123 Hz until further notice.  We've had some good roundtables including new hams discovering activity on our repeater which generates new interest and participation.    Locally you can access NFMRA via the W1KOO UHF Repeater on 443.150, +5 Mhz, PL 110.9 Hz co-located with 146.610. W1IMD UHF Repeater, Mt Mansfield, 447.175 MHz, -5 MHz, PL 110.9 Hz or W1BKK UHF Repeater, Monkton, 444.650 MHz, + 5 MHz, PL 110.9 Hz.   See our NFMRA UHF FM Network Page for other repeater info. 

Check out the Vermont VEM RACES net update below.  

 Our mailing address for the club is.

Burlington Amateur Radio Club, Inc.

PO BOX 312

ESSEX JUNCTION, VT  05453

Let me know if you are not receiving email.   (Reply back to W1OKH@W1KOO.org)  Some services, such as AOL, do not seem to reliably receive "group" email.

We could use more fresh material here!  Send via email to W1OKH@w1koo.org.

Vermont VEM RACES Nets:  

UHF Linked system and VHF FM linked repeaters from Northwestern Vermont are accessed through 

• W1IMD UHF, Mt Mansfield as part of the Northeast FM Repeater Association Network. (447.175, -5 MHz offset, 110.9 Hz Linked , Local has been disabled.)  

Here is the latest update from Cathy/NQ1B.

Monday schedule:

    1400 - 1500 (2:00 PM - 3:00 PM)        3815 kHz +/- QRM, followed by digital tests and drills on an 80 meter frequency TBD during the phone net

Tuesday schedule:

    1900 - 1930 (7:00 PM - 7:30 PM)        UHF linked system (Northeast FM Repeater Association )

     2000 - 2015 (8:00 PM - 8:30 PM)        DMR Statewide Vermont talk group

 NNYESN:  Northern New York Emergency Service Net runs every day at 0730 and 1900 hours on the Whiteface Repeater, VHF 145.110, PL of 100 Hz or UHF 447.775 MHz, PL of 100 Hz for Net Operation.)    Lyon Mountain, 147.285 MHz, PL 123 Hz is the primary backup with Terry Mountain, 145.490 MHz, PL 123 Hz is the secondary backup.  Purpose is training for Sky Warn and traffic handling. (NTS)   This net is monitored by the National Weather Service at the Burlington International Airport.  

    Protocol for WX reports are:

        Sky Conditions

        Precipitation

        Temperature in degrees F

        Wind speed and direction if known.

        Barometer if available

        Other comments such a wind damage or road conditions. 

The Whiteface VHF Repeater is strictly emergency and public service use only and is monitored 24 hours per day...No rag chewing.