POTA Day May 2

Posted on Apr.2026 by Orange County Radio Amateurs, INC

Fellow Hams,
Do you like to hang out with fellow radio enthusiasts? Do you want a chance to practice logging and contact-making skills before field day? Do you enjoy spending time in the great outdoors? If the answer to any of those is “Yes”, please come to the OCRA/DFMA Parks on the Air (POTA) day this coming weekend. Details are below:

Date: Saturday, May 2nd, with the very likely rain date of Sunday May 3rd. (We are keeping an eye on the potential for rain on the 2nd, and will make a call on officially rescheduling to the rain date by Friday evening.)

Time: Technically 1 pm – 4 pm, but we have the pavilion reserved for the day, so feel free to come set up early or linger past the official end time (while the park is open, of course)

Location: Little River Regional Park, look for the small pavilion filled with folks with radios.

What to bring:Yourself and any friends/family, water and other non-alcoholic beverages, snacks (aka Have Another Meal), sunscreen.

We have several folks coming already with portable radio setups (CW, SSB, and possibly digital) and laptops (and paper) for logging. You are welcome to bring portable radios/batteries/antennas to try out, but we will need to take turns transmitting to avoid interference. If you are a satellite enthusiast, feel free to bring yagis and VHF/UHF gear to see if we can catch some good passes. Hope to see you there!

Warm regards,
Aurora (KN4VXB)

Reserved Public Service Repeater Use Process

Posted on Dec.2025 by Orange County Radio Amateurs, INC

OCRA Special Request – Reserved Repeater Use Process

OCRA has made it a practice to allow use of the club repeaters for other special events. This is a practice that we all support and would like to continue. However, to make this possible and be able to deliver the best outcomes for the requester and club members a new request / approval policy needs to be put in place. This new policy is really quite simple and not intended to put an unnecessary burden on the requester.

All OCRA repeater users must follow the OCRA Repeater Code of Conduct. If you are not familiar with it, it can be found here:

https://ncocra.org/WordPress_v1/ocra-board-of-directors-repeater-code-of-conduct-policy/

The requester should send the request to: ocra@ncocra.org
The requester must list all repeaters, repeater locations, and frequencies they intend to use.
The requester must include the day, date, repeater use (primary / backup), expected duration of the use including start and stop times.
A minimum of a 2 week notice must be provided. This may sound extreme, but time is needed to properly communicate to Club Members when the repeater will not be available for general use.
VERY IMPORTANT: If the repeater is not in constant use, the requester needs to make occasional announcements, perhaps every 5 – 10 minutes. The announcement might be something like this: “This repeater is being used for the xxxxx event and we would appreciate a clear frequency”.
Once the request is approved by the OCRA Repeater Trustee, the requester has priority unless the specific repeater is needed for an emergency. For example, for disaster communications by AUXCOMM.

AFTER REQUEST IS RECEIVED

- Trustee receives the request
- Trustee reviews request and either approves or rejects
- Trustee sends notification to the OCRA leadership team
- President sends summary of the approved request to OCRA membership using Groups.io
- If request is for Saturday, the Net Control for Sat Aux Net will announce the upcoming event, and if needed will move the net to the backup repeater

Membership Survey for Future Meeting Program Topics

Posted on Sep.2025 by Orange County Radio Amateurs, INC

At the September 8th OCRA Club Meeting, it was announced that a membership survey for future program topics will be available.

To help aid us in providing quality programs each month at our membership meetings, we are now reaching out to YOU to see what topics you are interested in. Linked below is an online form (you do not need to download an app) that has over 27 topics listed.

We ask that you fill out the form, choose at least 3 topics, and let us know if you would like to present or would like to work with us to create a program on a certain topic if you’re knowledgeable about it.

Membership Survey for future Meeting Program Topics

The results of the survey will be discussed at the November Monthly Membership Meeting on November 10th at the Efland Baha’i Center

If you have any questions regarding the survey, please feel free to reach out to Matthew (KQ4ZYW) at kq4zyw@arrl.net

Thank you for your time and attention, and we look forward to seeing what topics our members are interested in!

OCRA/DFMA 2025 Field Day

Posted on Jun.2025 by Orange County Radio Amateurs, INC

2025 OCRA/DFMA Stations and Operators

CW Stations All Bands; Kevin KW4EE, Bruce, N1LN, Howie (taking a break) WA4PSC, Wilson, W4BOH
and next generation ham, Daniel KQ4GOB in the Land of Magic