Hosting a hybrid meeting.

[KX4QC]

Club and committee meetings are held in person or by internet with such as Zoom of Skype.
While I'm certainly not telling you how to run a meeting, either a purely in-person or a purely online meeting are technically easy. This post is about hosting a meeting where there are participants both physically present and also online.

The topic was well summarized in QST Jan 2024, p82-3.

Enhancing_Club_Meetings_Using_Hybrid_Meeting_Capabilities.pdf

There's a bit more to it than this, but this is the core of the approach used successfully by the Dominion DX Group (DDXG) and the Richmond Astronomical Society (RAS) among many others. In each case, the outline described in the article needs to be adapted to the location. It may be that there is already a a sound and video presentation system installed, that can be used to advantage. Sometimes one needs to show up with everything.

[KX4QC]

The QST article is a fine guide and comes close to how we do this hybrid trick at DDXG and also the Richmond Astronomical Society. Works a treat!

In passing, it is fun to note that computers are usually made with just one sound card, but an additional external USB sound card enables the QST hybrid meeting solution and also freeDV. Check out the link for more: viewtopic.php?t=67

[admin]

Posted, with kind permission of KO4HUC:

Hi Ken

Glad to help if I can. And I would be very happy to meet you and test out different configurations. I know hybrid meetings can be a challenge.

We went through a few test configurations to get a working hybrid meeting as well. There are two configurations that we use depending on the presenter's preference. I have listed these on the attached graphic.

Generally, my experience has been to keep it as simple as possible and, in our case, to have some redundancy. We meet at the Science Museum of Virginia and link to their A/V system. I don't always know the condition of their system, so that's where the redundancy is needed.

The other bit of experience I have had is with USB hubs and Bluetooth wireless. I have had audio dropouts with USB hubs, so I do not use them for our hybrid meetings. I also try to use direct-wired USB as opposed to wireless when I can, but sometimes we can't avoid using wireless mikes.

Please have a look at the attached graphics and see if they are intelligible. Once you have had a look, we can talk on the phone or in-person as you like.

Hope you get a resolution,

Jim
KO4HUC