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| John King, KB3WK, from the Columbia Amateur Radio Association with Alex (facing camera) and Jonathan (both of Troop 944). |
The Troop had a service project at the Chartering Organization church, so John King, KB3WK, and I had a "captive" audience. John and I spent a few hours Friday afternoon putting up a G5RV about 35' in the trees.
We operated for around four hours Saturday morning/early afternoon with the special event call sign W3J. Six boys were able to talk to stations to the North and to the South of us. Stations worked: N2IQV, KD5MLD, K2DE, N4IV, W6LMJ, and KE4AMC.
I am moving to Italy next year and plan on working the 51st JOTA with my son and the local BSA Troop there in Naples. "See" everyone next October.
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| John King, KB3WK, with Alex (facing camera) and Jonathan. |
The Troop had a service project at the Chartering Organization church, so John King, KB3WK, and I had a "captive" audience. John and I spent a few hours Friday afternoon putting up a G5RV about 35' in the trees.
We operated for around four hours Saturday morning/early afternoon with the special event call sign W3J. Six boys were able to talk to stations to the North and to the South of us. Stations worked: K2DE, N4IV, W6LMJ, and KE4AMC.
I am moving to Italy next year and plan on working the 51st JOTA with my son and the local BSA Troop there in Naples. "See" everyone next October.
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| Members of Pack 260 (Glen Mills, PA) at the W3S 20 Meter Station With Mark N2MR | |
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| Members of Pack 1313 (Wlimington, DE) at the W3S 2 Meter Station | |
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| Members of Pack 1313 (Wilmington, DE) and Pack 55 (West Chester, PA) at the W3S 40 Meter Station With Al K3WGR | |
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| Members of Pack 55 (West Chester, PA) and Troop 55 (Exton, PA) at the W3S 20 Meter Station With Art, N3DXX, and Dennis, K3DS | |
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| Members of Pack 55 (West Chester, PA) Building Their Cricket Kits With Joe N2CX | |
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| Members of Pack 260 (Glen Mills, PA) Building Their Cricket Kits | |
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| Girl Scouts From Troops 53309 and 597 (Garnet Valley Service Unit) Learning About EMCOMM From Fred N3OFR | |
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| Members of Pack 260 (Glen Mills, PA) Getting an EMCOMM Demo From Bob W3BIG | |
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| Members of Pack 1313 (Wilmington, DE) Hunting Transmitters | |
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| Thank You To Our Sponsors! |
Cradle Of Liberty Council Cub Scout Pack 260 was very happy to sponsor a Jamboree On The Air event this year for Scouting units in our local area.
A total of 68 Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Boy Scouts took part in the event which was held at Amateur Radio Station N3NR in Glen Mills, PA on Saturday, October 20th. Participants came from units located in Chester and Delaware County Pennsylvania, as well as New Castle County Delaware. Units participating came from the Cradle of Liberty, Chester County, and Delmarva Councils of BSA, as well as Girl Scouts from the Garnet Valley Service Unit of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania Council.
We had started planning this event in August and I, in particular, was very surprised at how well the event ended up following the original plan. This being the 50th JOTA we wanted to really expand the event beyond the traditional get-on-the-air operation. So, we planned several other activities to demonstrate the breadth of activities that Amateur Radio covers. The overarching plan was to keep the Scouts moving. Cub Scouts, in particular, are very easy to lose if you don’t keep things fast paced enough for them. With that goal in mind the general operating plan was to have units come to the station and participate in an hour and a half program. The units would be split up and rotated through the various activities at 30 minute intervals. The activities would include getting on the air, kit building, and demonstrations/games.
On the Air Activity
For the event we had a total of four stations in operation covering 40 meters, 20 meters, 17 meters, and 2 meters. We were granted use of the W3S special event callsign for JOTA this year. Every Scout who attended got a chance to speak on the air at one of the four operating positions that were setup for the day. Scouts were successful in making contact and talking with other JOTA stations in the United Kingdom, the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean, and many stations throughout the United States and Canada. In addition, the Scouts got to hear contacts with other stations through out the world, including stations in the Ukraine, Senegal, Portugal, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic. Some of the Scouts were also successful in making contact with stations in the Laredo, Texas area using an IRLP link via the K3MN repeater.
The operating mode was primarily voice (SSB and FM), although we actually had a demand from some of the Scouts to hear a CW contact. Of course, we were so happy to hear someone actually request CW that we obliged the request immediately!
Kit Building
My cohort in planning many of these activites was Joe Everhart, N2CX. Many Amateurs may recognize Joe as being one of the most well known QRP technical sources in the US. I cannot thank him enough for all the help he gave to me to make this event happen.
Every Scout was given an electronic kit to build. The kit building activity was overseen by Joe, N2CX. Scouts in grades 4 and above got a chance to build “The Cricket” kit as part of their time at the event. “The Cricket” utilizes a PIC microprocessor to sense temperature and then drive a speaker to make a cricket-like chirping sound. The kit originated from W1REX of QRPme (www.qrp.e.com). Joe adapted the original circuit board kit to utilize solderless perf board instead to ease contstruction for the kids. An article that gives the details on this implementation of “The Cricket” is due to be posted on the NJQRP website (www.njqrp.org).
Scouts in grades 3 and below were given a Crystal Radio kit to take home to assemble and experiment with. We had originally planned to have the Scouts assemble the kit at the event, but we were surprised to find that the kit that was ordered for the event required the main tuning coil to be hand wound. Not a very easy thing to do in 30 minutes!
Demonstrations and Games
Throughout the day Scouts were shown a demonstration of Amateur Radio Emergency Communications by Bob Wilson, W3BIG, who is a member of the Delaware County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (DCARES). In addition to providing the equipment for the 17 meter station, Bob also gave an overview of other capabilities that can be deployed by DCARES in the event of an emergency. Concord Township Fire Marshal and Emergency Management Coordinator Fred Field, N3OFR, who is also a member of DCARES, also spoke to the Scouts regarding Emergency Communications and preparedness.
The activity the Scouts all agreed they enjoyed the most was the “Hidden Transmitter Hunting Game”. We wanted to run a foxhunt, but decided that a full fledged VHF-based foxhunt was probably inviting trouble. So instead, Joe, N2CX, came up with a mini flea-power AM BCB transmitter design. Joe built three of the transmitters in small black boxes that could be easily hid. Each transmitter was keyed by a PIC, and each transmitter was programmed with a different message: BSA, GSA, and CUB. The transmit frequencies were spread out across the AM BC band on frequencies that were not allocated to a station in our area. The Scouts were given the challenge of finding one of the hidden transmitters using a basic transistor radio that was pretuned to one of the transmitter frequencies. In every case, after finding one transmitter, the Scouts asked to trade receivers and go try to find another one!
Thanks To Our Volunteers and Sponsors
The event was primarily paid for by donations from several local institutions including: The Philadelphia Section of IEEE ( www.ieeephiladelphia.org ), Frankford Radio Club ( www.gofrc.org ), Marple Newtown Amateur Radio Club ( www.mnarc.org ), Delaware County Amateur Radio Emergency Service ( www.delcoares.org ), American QRP Club/New Jersey QRP Club ( www.amqrp.org or www.njqrp.org ), and DRS Technologies C3 Systems business unit ( www.drs.com ).
In addition, we would also like to thank the volunteers who helped make this event possible: from the Philadelphia Section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Dr. Denis Silage (K3DS); from the American QRP Club/New Jersey QRP Club, Joe Everhart (N2CX); from the Delaware County Amateur Radio Service, Fred Field (N3OFR) and Bob Wilson (W3BIG); from Frankford Radio Club, Art Hitchens (N3DXX), Brian Kelly (W3RV), Mike Moreken (AB2IO), Mark Smith (N2MR), and Al Zimmerman (K3WGR).
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| Brian Short, KC0BS wraps up a successful QSO | |
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| Bill Henderson, K0VBU helps a scout with "mic. fright" | |
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| Duncan MacLachlan, KU0DM (JOTA coordinator) demonstrates how to call CQ | |
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| "I think we got somebody!" |
We operated under my call since I was present the entire event.
We started our operations a little later than planned, no worries though, we already had a crowd of scouts. We finally let the scouts loose, within a few minutes, they were calling CQ under the watchful eye of several Ham volunteers. In total, 49 scouts visited and all but 1 made 1 or 2 contacts minimum (the other 1 was addicted to the CW paddles)
We got lucky and several scouts got to work Germany and when 15 opened, Turks and Caicos Island.
To make a long story short, we achieved our mission and a good time was had by all.
73 from Duncan (JOTA coordinator)
This was the second year that Cub Scout Pack 705 sponsored a JOTA event. We had 30 People attend ..... 4 leaders 3 teachers from the local elementary school 19 cubs 1 Junior Girl Scout 1 reporter from the local neighborhood paper
We set up in our scout house on the grounds of Parker Elementary in Houston, Texas. Our antennas were a 20M buddipole and all band, trapped dipole Band conditions were terrible. We monitored activity on 2m, 20m and 40m but made only 3 contacts ... 2 on 2m - one of them is a quadriplegic man who lives in Houston. He has a special rig. He types his message on a keyboard using a pencil in his mouth and a voice synthesizer links to the transmitter. The boys were really moved by that contact.
1 on 20 M with scouts at a camp in Alabama. Several of my boys had a chance to talk with other scouts before the band closed for us again.
However, the exhibits went over well We demonstrated Morse code on a practice oscillator Handed out several copies of the basic Morse code characters demonstrated PSK31 and talked about community service and emergency communications
Exhibits included:
Morse code sheets
Morse code practice key for the kids to try
a 1956 vintage (tube) HAM radio receiver (with the case open)
a modern radio with the case open
Examples of HAM radio in action for emergency aid
HAM radio license information
Wall maps to mark locations we contacted
After six months of unsuccessfully searching for Radio Scouters to help with JOTA, my son and I headed off to Camp Coker in Society Hill, SC to present a one man JOTA for the Order of The Arrow encampment scheduled that weekend. As we began launching lines into the pine trees for the Carolina Windom, we were joined by two men and a Scout who offered to help. We were glad for it, and they helped us get the antenna raised. While setting up the HF station one of the men introduced his son as an Eagle Scout, a licensed ham who had been awarded something for 2006. Regrettably, with my ears tuned to the radio I only caught a bit of what was said. When they offered to bring their battery powered '857 and 20M dipole up from their campsite I said "Great" and in turn helped them get their antenna up over the building we were using for JOTA. So now we had two stations working SSB and CW. Greg was sure good on that key. My signal was okay, but I had to wait my turn with many contacts. By the end of the day I had logged a dozen contacts between our Scouts and others up and down the east coast, both on 20M and 40M. Greg had worked a number of stations including Italy. Activity began to fade and we had a two hour drive home so we packed it in and thanked our friends for their help.
The next day as I looked over the log I realized I didn't have Greg's call or his dad's name or call. Who were those great people who had appeared out of the woods? I turned to every Scout and Scouter that had seen us that day asking if they knew their names, but no luck. Then during the ARRL Sweepstakes I ran across N4MXP and Mark recognized my call and remembered the JOTA operation. Hey , I 've been looking everywhere for you! I responded. I quickly noted both his call and Greg's N3XL. Later on Google I found out that I had spent JOTA 2007 with Greg Davis N3XL, the 2006 Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Award winner, and his dad Mark N4MXP.
Ham radio sure makes it a small world, and I'll never forget the 50th Annual JOTA.
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| The Station | |
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| The literature area | |
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| Talking on the Radio | |
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| Pounding Brass with a keyer The boys found the keyer easier than a straight key! | |
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| The VHF/UHF Antenna |
In all, the station was operating from 9 AM to about 5 PM on Saturday, and made 22 contacts. This included (2) cw qsos, with all but 3 contacts being made on 40 mtrs. Approximately 250 our of the 400 boys at the cuboree came by the display, and around 150 or so were able to get on the air. It was a busy day. Other JOTA stations were contacted in AL, AR, IN, LA, MS, NY, and TX.
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| Michael Mathis KD5MVU with Pack 930 Scouts |
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| Horizontal Trap Dipole Antenna | |
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| Out of the rain and making contacts. | |
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| The SPL and APL's take a shot at the mike. |
We took advantage of a 30 foot flag pole near the lodge and erected a 25 foot mast about 100 ft away from the pole to string up a horizontal trap dipole antenna. The scouts put up the antenna in a steady down pour of rain in a scene that looked like the Iwo Jima flag picture. We operated mostly on the 40m and 20m amateur bands.
We had some radio problems initially with the transmitter and had to swap out to a backup transmitter. We did manage to make several good contacts but not as many as we had hoped due to some problems with the second transmitter as well. Regardless all 31 boys did get an attempt at making contact. Though we were not always successful. By morning we had the primary radio working and attempted a few more contact before breaking camp.
This was the first participation by Troop 462 in the JOTA and most of the boys had never seen HF amateur radio equipment before. The scouts had a good time listening and attempting to converse with folks all around the United States. Many were very interested in the code key and how to send and receive Morse code. Several were able to send there name in a short period of time. A number of boys also indicated a desire to follow up with working on the Radio Merit badge and maybe get licensed themselves. See you next year! 73’s WAØONE portable 7
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One of the boys noticed the radio we were using and asked if it was made specifically for the JOTA. The radio was a Ten-Tec Scout.
I would also like to give special thanks to W0SJS who loaned me the radio and KC0SDV who loaned me the generator to run the station.
Here are some pictures from our Camporee JOTA station.
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