On Friday, 2 April 2027, RARS is sponsoring a Parks On The Air event called the RARSFest POTA Ramble. This takes place the day before RARSFest and is an activity for people to enjoy as they travel into the Raleigh area in preparation to attend RARSFest the next day. RARS will staff a POTA station at four different locations around the Raleigh Area. Each station will be equipped with a 100 Watt transceiver capable of operation on SSB or CW, 12 Volt DC power source, antenna resonant on 20 and 40 meters, microphone and CW key. Each station will be on the air from 10 AM until 4 PM and will have an Extra Class control operator present.

Participants are invited to visit as many of the stations as they like and to do a POTA activation from each station. Hams may use their own call signs to do their activation using the RARS provided gear. They may also bring their own radio, microphone or key if they prefer, but are asked to use the RARS-provided antenna to avoid impact to other users of the park. Technician class licensees who are curious about POTA can use this as an opportunity to activate a park on HF thanks to the presence of the Extra Class control operator at each site.

Each station will give a ticket to every one who does an activation at that station. If an operator activates from one station, he gets one ticket, if he activates from two stations, he gets two tickets, etc. for a maximum of four tickets. Each ticket can be entered into a drawing at RARSFest and the winner will win a Spooltenna antenna donated to RARS by Spooltenna. The more parks activated means the more chances to win. Also, people entering all 4 tickets into the drawing will also be given a “Clean Sweep” award for having made an activation at each of the 4 locations.

Each of the four stations will be monitoring the 146.64 W4DW repeater which uses a negative offset and has no PL tone. Participants are encouraged to talk to one another and the operators at the various parks on the 64 repeater throughout the day as they travel from park to park. The 64 repeater can also be used as a talk in if a participant needs help finding the park's entrance.

At 6 PM on Friday, 2 April 2027 at the conclusion of the Ramble everyone is invited to meet at Rudinos at 3101 Edwards Mill Road, Raleigh, NC 27612 for a Dutch treat supper.

If you can't attend, then be a hunter! Every hunter who appears in one of the logs turned in by our activators will get a special digital graphic certificate via e-mail for participation in the event. The station whose call sign appears most in the logs (the person who has made the most hunter contacts during the Ramble) will win a Spooltenna.

Hunters are encouraged to set alerts for the following parks:

• US-2755
• US-4853
• US-4857

Hunters should work every unique activator they hear from those references between 9 AM and 4 PM Eastern Time on 2 April 2027.