About TARA
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Our Mission:
"The Torrance Amateur Radio Association is an organization of licensed amateur radio operators that will provide backup emergency communications for the city in a time of city-wide emergency or disaster. TARA will provide on request no-cost communication service for any special event held in the South Bay."
A Little History
The Torrance Amateur Radio Association (TARA) provides emergency communications during a major communications outage.
With licensed amateur radio operators stationed throughout the community, TARA ensures vital information is shared among first responders. Weekly nets are held at 7:00 pm each Monday. These are open nets; all amateurs are welcome. Hundreds of hours are volunteered each month by TARA members as a group in services to the City and County. Communications are also provided for the Torrance Armed Forces Day Parade, and various events throughout the South Bay. New members are always welcome. If you are an amateur radio operator living or working in or near Torrance, we welcome you. TARA was formed in 1986 as a group of Amateur Radio volunteers to provide emergency communication support to the Torrance Police Department during times of need, like an earthquake, civil unrest or other disaster in the City. TARA has the ability to communicate when normal means of communication fail. TARA could also provide eyes and ears from every corner of the city should a natural disaster, communications outage or other need occur. Every Zip Code is covered. Our charter as TARA is to provide observation, reporting, and communication services to the City by Federally Licensed radio amateurs when called upon. The Amateur Radio room at the Torrance Police Department has multi-band capability at the ready. To ensure that readiness, TARA conducts a weekly, on-air, nets of members from that station. Our regular drills have demonstrated many times that TARA can setup a remote, self-contained radio station at any location in a relatively short period of time. In the past, we have assisted the City and others on multiple occasions: - Provided communication at every Air Show held at the Torrance Airport. - TARA members have provided communications at every Armed Forces Day Parade since 1986. From Staging to the Master of Ceremonies, we covered communication. - In cooperation with TPD, distributed flyers for the ‘See Something, Say Something’ campaign in high crime areas. - Reported defective street lights multiple times. In turn, City found they were paying for maintenance that Edison was not doing. - Monitored the Wilson Park 4th of July Celebrations, along with CERT, day and night, many times. During which many lost children were reunited with their parents. - TARA provided key communications for the annual visits of the B-17 Bomber to the Torrance Airport. - TARA has been instrumental in making sure all branch libraries and ADCs have an antenna set up, and all of our schools have an antenna, and that they work. All of these illustrate the wide variety of volunteer services that TARA has been involved with and made available to the City of Torrance going back to 1986. That’s a service record of 30 years. Our City has over 145,000 people. With a disaster, Torrance will need a large number of rescue workers in a short period of time. Both TARA and CERT members have been training for such an event for years. We would like to remind everyone that there is a very real need for groups like TARA and CERT. Please visit our Contact Page if you would like to become part of TARA. |
