News Page 14
This page contains all the latest news about school amateur radio clubs. Please contact us to add your SARC news to this page. Send us a picture and description of your SARC activities. Remember to get parental permission to publish student photographs on this site and in our newsletters.
Public Transport On The Air
In November 2022 we commenced a new On The Air activation program called Public Transport On The Air (PTOTA). We wanted to create a program specifically suited to young, newly-licenced Amateur Radio operators. This program provides incentives to get on the air, while travelling on public transport, using simplified rules, readily available hand-held radios and local repeaters. For more information about the program and current rankings please see here.
The PTOTA program permits Amateur Radio (AR) activation of the Public Transport (PT) system during any part of your journey:
- While travelling to or from a PT station or stop;
- While waiting for a PT vehicle at a PT station or stop;
- While travelling on board a PT vehicle and
- While in transit on a public transport journey, somewhere nearby a PT station or stop
PTOTA on the Train
Flexible operation and simplified online logging and reporting means that participation in the PTOTA program is easy for everyone. There are online rankings for activators and chasers and stations logged are displayed immediately. No need to submit formatted log files.
Equal points are awarded to activators and chasers alike and to keep the program fresh, on 1 January each year participation certificates are emailed out and your points are reset.
PTOTA Online Logging and Reporting
For those wanting to use HF radio in a portable environment, activation is permitted on any PT journey at a park nearby any PT station or stop.
Stations should call "CQ PTOTA" on HF or "Listening Train/Tram/Bus Mobile" on repeaters and just for fun they can signoff "73, toot-toot, ding-ding or beep-beep" (depending on their mode of public transport).
The calling frequency on 40m is 7.105MHz LSB. Otherwise use the nearest repeater frequency.
PTOTA in a nearby park
PTOTA on the Bus
