As of Fall 2026, we have started several Special Interest Groups
This will mark some significant changes as to how our club will communicate with members. In fact, members will now be able to learn from and share their expertise with ofther members in peer-to-peer mode. This was introduced at the September 2026 meeting with a very positive response so we have moved forward with it.
Lots to go over…
Ham Radio is a hobby of 100 other hobbies
This is both an opportunity and a challenge. CNHARC is making available to all members several on-line peer-to-peer Special Interest Groups or SIG’s. The SIG concept was pioneered by Rich Kumpf, WF1V and others quickly offered to help out because the demand exists.
As part of this debut, we already have four special interest groups ready to go and one more in development. All of this was driven by member involvement.
- DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) Moderator: Rich Kumph, WF1V
- LINUX for ham radio Moderator: Kevin McCaig, W1KVM
- Remote SDR radio. Moderator: Steve Kacenjar, KA2CRH
- POTA or Parks on the Air. Initial Moderator: Rick Zach, KK1RZ (temporarily to get things going)
- (soon) Artificial Intellegence for Ham Radio Initial Moderator: Rick Zach, KK1RZ (temporarily to get things going)
Checking out the groups and joining will take two steps:
- Go to the https://groups.io/g/cnharc/ landing page to start out as a new Groups.io member. This will only be used to create an account so that you can check out or join the SIG’s that interest you.
- You can opt-in or opt-out of any SIG mailings but being a member will automatically allow you to post questions and make contributions to the group.
- SIG members will always have web-access to the content. Email notices are optional but you can also receive notices in “digest mode” to prevent spamming through out the day or week.
- Unlike Facebook, SIG members and their posting are NOT made public to the internet. Access is exclusively for CNHARC SIG members only.
- Once you sign in for the first time, you may then pick out the SIG or SIGs that may be of interest to you.
Remember that this is a peer-to-peer system to learn and share knowledge.
In the case of the DMR SIG, we will have a library of DMR codeplugs (frequency software) customised for the Lakes Region and your model radio. If you are already one of the 17 DMR members via Google Groups, Dave Merchant, K1DLM is working with Rich, WF1V to migrate the existing members to the Groups.io platform.
The POTA SIG is a bit different in that it will also be used to create future multi-operator POTA events if the demand exists. More typically, members may post pictures of their solo POTA events. One member write-up was already posted with pictures about a POTA activation at the Marconi Station on Cape Cod. The rare grid square caused a serious pileup but that is POTA!
In the case of the Remote SDR Radio SIG, moderator Steve Kacenjar, KA2CRH is very active with developing the group capabilities and is already explaining his SIG plans for a club-owned, web-accessed remote SDR Receiver at our Franklin repeater site. The hardware has already been donated.
The Groups.io beta testing so far has been positive but if you have any functionality questions, contact the SIG Moderator for each group.
We are using a paid, private, full featured platform called Groups.io. You may already have an account there as it is very popular among hams. If all goes as well as planned, we may be migrating our primary club mailing list away from MailChimp and to Groups.io. The annual fees are about the same but groups.io has dramatically richer features and is much easier to control.
Our other problem is that our club files are spread out over several platforms including Bluehost, MailChimp, Google Groups and Google Drive. Much of this was inherited with very different methods of control and security. Exactly who had access to what was and still is very confusing. Groups.io will greatly simplify management and open member access to many more features.
More to come but for now, please go here below to log in for the first time. Once you are validated as a non-spammer, your personal security will be added. After step-1 emailed validation, step-2 will grant you access to join each SIG as you see fit. Again, the main group is primarily a landing page.
Remember to specify how you would like to be notified of new content.
Go here: https://groups.io/g/cnharc/