For years, amateur radio has been a fore front for communications, both hobby and emergency. They often blended together their respective uses to achieve one specific task;
To pass messages from a source to their destination.
It doesn’t matter if it is for recreation, training or a real-live emergency need. That effort is still carries that same meaning, but with an aura of political weight behind it. We as amateurs still drill to support emergencies and “Hope,” to be used one day in an event. Amateur Radio and it’s seasoned, trained operators are important to corner stones of modern day communications either by trunking, mesh, microwave networks. It in reality is all similar and originates from its backbone of amateur radio.
Where am I going with this?
For starters:
Brett LaRose and some other echelons of Vermont’s EM leadership feel a need to sunset RACES in their state sighting “modern communications and streamlining its support.” I am paraphrasing this statement but an official word is an official word no matter how it is displayed. We as laypeople will really never know an actual truth of what is discussed behind closed doors. This is in-fact a face value and opinionated drawn argument.
Dropping RACES support sponsored by a state entity is a bad idea. Integration of volunteer organizations into state emergency management helps supplement state critical communications when they go down. “It is not a matter of time, but a matter of when,” some amateur radio operators have said citing new infrastructure’s dependency on an internet backbone. When internet backed critical infrastructure goes down that information does not flow, fall back measures are activated and one of those many fallback measures is Amateur radio. Whether removed from “funding, or support,” Amateur radio is always there when called.
Secondly, amateur radio is consistently drilled by skilled, operators within their hobby and during quarterly training events, even more so than average state elected officials whom job is emergency management and any politics that carry its day to day operation [and bring food home for their families]. Amateur Radio is and always has been a self-funded hobby. Its funding comes from Amateur’s own pockets and jobs they support. We maintain our own antennas that are consistently used and replaced when damaged by weather. Amateur’s radio equipment used heavily and also funded by those same funds. Amateurs consistently upgrade and integrate new capabilities into their stations and for those of us who have some credentialing with county emergency management, we know inner workings of our county and how to communicate through drill and state level training. Looking from a cost perspective to state sponsorship, Amateur Radio is very low if that minimal. Amateurs may ask for a comfortable place to operate, sustenance, fluids, a toilet and a place to sleep, during an event and that funding is essentially a wash.
In comparison to what we have here in our county. We are gracious of our County Emergency Coordinators to have our backs per say. They have given us access to their new EOC and a place for us to train, erect antennas and provide support for events we are called upon to participate. That in of it self shows value and investment into amateur radio. Our ARES and RACES team has been given a task to support our local hospitals and that is a pleasure to be able to support. Again, it shows value. We as ARES and RACES members are integrated into our County alerting system that gives a notification for any needed activation or need to monitor a repeater. On 12/30/2025 after a major snowstorm, we received a county alert stating that risk should be exercised when traveling to county offices for work and restricting travel when not important. This prompts our membership to monitor our local repeater for any further notifications.
Now, this can all be taken away in a flash. All it takes is one county executive, a bad experience with our amateur radio community to tarnish amateur radio operators providing any worth and that all comes to an end. We as amateurs providing a service need to tread carefully when it comes to supporting a publicly and politically facing executive leadership.
All it takes is one instance to make future participation difficult.
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