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See the Cholla Jump!


Useful Info

Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 64264
Tucson, AZ 85728

Links:
Cholla Cactus Info
Search and Rescue Council


Links to other Cactus Intertie Sites:

Cactus Radio Club, CA

SARBA

Armadillo Intertie System

JPARA

Intertie Inc.

White Tanks Mountain R. B. A.

NCCRA

Rabbit Radio Network

Grand Mesa, CO

SRCA, Utah

Saddle Peak, CA

Big Sky Intertie

NERA Washington


Amateur Radio Links:

EAARS
Our Heliograph partner

The QRZ Site
Callsign lookup

HAMRAD
Want Ads & more

ARCA Coordinators
Frequency Listings


Members Home Pages:

N7CK

N6DGT

AC7IL



Affiliated Club of the
American Radio Relay League




















Last update: 04/16/09
Page rewrite

You have wandered across the
Cholla Amateur Remote Base Association
Homepage


The Cholla Amateur Remote Base Association is a group of amateur radio operators based in southeastern Arizona who enjoy connecting mountaintop remote controlled uhf radios together via advanced radio linking. As part of the Cactus Intertie System, we bring connectivity to our service area which is centered on the city of Tucson, AZ.

CARBA is a sponsored membership orgainzation of licensed radio amateurs that has been in existence since the mid 1970's. To learn more about our group and its structure, you can read the CARBA FAQ.

We have taken our name from the indigenous Cholla cactus, commonly known as the jumping cactus, because of its similarity to our radio links jumping from site to site.

Our group is at the forefront of using the amateur radio Microwave Bands for our links. We have developed practical ways of linking our different sites using an infrastructure built on microwave radios. You can learn more by reading The CARBA MICROWAVE STORY.


Visit our Radio Sites

Mt.
Lemmon
This is our primary site which overlooks Tucson from a 9000 foot vantage point in the Santa Catalina Mountains.
Mt. BigelowCARBA's primary microwave hub is located a few miles east of Mt. Lemmon. The site provides us a place to mount mutiple microwave dishes making a hub possible.
Downtown Our local site provides close in coverage in the metro Tucson area as well as fill-in coverage on the north part of the city which is shadowed from Mt. Lemmon.
Mule Mt. This site provides great coverage in the southeast corner of the state. Mule Mt. overlooks the town of Bisbee and has a great view of Sierra Vista and Douglas.
Elephant
Head
Located half way between Tucson and Nogales in the Santa Rita mountains, Elephant Head Peak provides solid coverage along Interstate 19 south of Tucson.
Heliograph
Pk.
At a 10,000 foot elevation, Heliograph Peak is our highest site. It is located along the south end of the Pinaleño Mountains overlooking the town of Safford. We share the responsibility for the site with the Jacks Peak Cactus Intertie affiliate.
Dragoon Near the town of Dragoon, Arizona, this site overlooks Texas Canyon and east and west along I-10 between the towns of Benson and Willcox.
Dark
Canyon
We are also partners with the Jacks Peak A.R.A. in this site in southeastern New Mexico. Dark Canyon is on the last high mountain in the southwestern U.S. and looks over the plains to the east. It is also our radio gateway to Texas.


Visit our Radio Neighbors

SARBA The Saguaro Amateur Remote Base Assn, is our neighbor to the north. We link to their site on Pinal Peak via a microwave link from our site on Mt. Bigelow. Pinal Peak often will receive much snow in the winter. The winter of 2008-2009 was a bad one for our microwave dish. Here are pictures of the mess.
JPARA We share our site on Heliograph Peak with them. The Jack's Peak group has sites throughout New Mexico in locations such as Sandia Peak, Benson Ridge, Dark Canyon, Caballo Mountain and, in Arizona, on Guthrie Peak.
NERA The Cactus affiliate in the Washington, D.C. area is NERA.
We link to NERA via the a DRIL voip link.

Click for Tucson, Arizona Forecast

CARBA has participated in collecting weather data via APRS from the radio site on Mt. Lemmon.


The ragtime background music was "performed" by N7LDI lovingly entering each note one at a time into his computer. There are 25 different tunes from a collection of 80 which are selected at random each time the page is loaded.

If, for some strange reason, you don't like the music. Click Here for a silent page.