There will be no Gathering in December.
All other December meetings will be as normally scheduled.
The Portable Operating Group
Who We Are
The Portable Operating Group is a Special Interest Group of the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society.
Created on February 15, 2022, for the purposes of
demonstrating amateur radio in public and preparing radio amateurs to operate beyond the conveniences of their home stations, our goals include
Practicing the rapid deployment, assessment, and troubleshooting of equipment in the field
Providing opportunities for Technician and General class license holders to operate on HF bands
in order to gain experience with General and Extra class license exam topics
Providing operating opportunities to hams without a home station
Practicing for handling pile-ups by activating POTA entities
Introducing the public to the amateur radio hobby in a positive way
What We Do
To fulfill our goals, the Portable Operating Group ventures into the field each month (more or less) with portable amateur radio equipment
to operate for a few hours in public places.
Often our activities will include activating a Parks on the Air (POTA) entity.
We supply all the equipment needed to get on the air - radios, antennas, cables, and power sources.
Participants are also welcome to bring their own portable stations to demonstrate to other attendees, if they would like.
Our events are open to everyone. You do not need to be a member of RARS or any other club to attend.
In fact, you don't even need to be a licensed amateur radio operator!
Our events are ideal for newly licensed hams and for people who just want to find out what amateur radio is.
We have experienced operators who will help you if you want to "Get on the Air."
Although we try to get out at least once a month, we don't operate on a fixed schedule. You will find a partial list of events below.
We also announce events on the RARS homepage,
on Brantley West's QRZed page,
and on various email reflectors for local amateur radio operators.
Since we often operate in large parks or other public spaces, we typically provide a "talk-in" on 146.52 MHz (the national two-meter simplex calling frequency)
or the RARS W4DW 146.64 MHz repeater (-0.6 MHz offset, no tone) to help guide you to our actual location.
