Scoutmaster Ron Cady, K1RKD, guides a Cub Scout at W1AW as he searches for other stations during JOTA 2004.
ARRL Contest Branch Manager Dan Henderson, N1ND, with two Cub scouts during JOTA 2004 at W1AW.
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Scoutmaster Ron Cady, K1RKD, guides a Cub Scout at W1AW as he searches for other stations during JOTA 2004. |
ARRL Contest Branch Manager Dan Henderson, N1ND, with two Cub scouts during JOTA 2004 at W1AW. |
NEWINGTON, CT, Oct 14, 2005--Scouting's Jamboree On The Air (JOTA), is a 48-year-old tradition that provides an opportunity for the Amateur Radio community to expose young people to Amateur Radio. JOTA 2005 takes place over the weekend of October 15-16, and if you've never participated in this annual fall event you're missing a great weekend. Operation may be on any Amateur Radio band or mode.
"It's a chance to offer a Boy Scout or Girl Scout leader--cubs and brownies included--the opportunity for their troop or pack to participate in this worldwide scouting tradition," says ARRL Educational and Technology Program Coordinator Mark Spencer, WA8SME. He notes that Les Mitchell, G3BHK, came up with the idea for the first JOTA in 1958. Some half a million scouts and Guides in more than 100 countries have participated since the initial running, making JOTA the largest international scouting event ever.
JOTA 2005 begins Saturday, October 15, at 0001 local time and ends Sunday, October 16, at 2359 local time (which may be Monday, October 17 in some locations). Stations on the air for this international event include K2BSA/5 at Camp Wisdom in Dallas, Texas; additional K2BSA stations operating from other US call sign districts; HB9S, the World Scout Bureau headquarters in Switzerland, and GB2GP at Gilwell Park, England. Members of the Newington Amateur Radio League (NARL) will sponsor JOTA activities at ARRL Maxim Memorial Station W1AW.
Spencer advises participating groups to register their JOTA
events on the ARRL Web site. "Some scout troops are very small or may want to
'check out' JOTA before setting one up of their own," he says. "Registering
will help them locate the closest JOTA event."
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 ISS Expedition 3 Commander Frank Culbertson, KD5OPQ, wore his Boy Scout T-shirt in space during his run of JOTA 2001 contacts from NA1SS. Culbertson was active in the Boy Scouts as a youth in South Carolina. |
The Valencia County Amateur Radio Association provides the Get Your Radio Merit Badge Day Planning and Materials Notebook to help groups organize a Radio merit badge seminar in association with JOTA. More information about JOTA is available in September QST, p 54.
Additional
information on Amateur Radio and scouting is on the ARRL Web site. ARRL
asks JOTA participants to complete a simple survey on the ARRL
Web site following JOTA. Completing this form will help ARRL see the growth and
the needs of this activity.
JOTA Space and Satellite Opportunities
The AO-51 "Echo" team has announced that during JOTA 2005, the satellite will be available for for exclusive use by scouts and by satellite operators communicating with scouts. "Please allow the scouts the opportunity to make as many contacts as possible via AO-51 during this short time period," said Mike Kingery, KE4AZN, of the AO-51 team.
For the JOTA weekend, AO-51 will be configured in the dual FM repeater mode. This provides two independent FM repeaters with separate uplink and downlink frequencies for use by JOTA participants.
Kingery says this mode will be enabled the week before the event to allow amateur satellite stations to familiarize and test this mode. AO-51 FM Repeater #1 downlink is 435.300 MHz; the uplink is 145.920 MHz (67 Hz CTCSS tone required). AO-51 FM Repeater #2 downlink is 435.150 MHz; the uplink is 145.880 MHz (no CTCSS tone required).
Although there has been JOTA operation in the past from the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station's NA1SS, the chances of operation for JOTA 2005 are slim. That's because the event falls very close to the arrival of the ISS Expedition 12 crew of Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, and Valery Tokarev. ARISS Ham Radio Project Engineer Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO, says a decision on JOTA participation by NA1SS will be up to McArthur.--some information from AMSAT-NA and ARISS
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