scouts – Spinning and Grinning

Be Prepared for this Scouting Award

The Scouting 100 Radio Award is awarded for contacting Scout stations during 2007, the Centenary year of Scouting. This is an International award, available to any operator – it is also available on a listener basis, with the same requirements as the operator award.

Objective:
To help celebrate the centenary of Scouting through the medium of radio. To help publicise the Centenary, and to provide radio amateurs the opportunity of gaining another Award. Although not intended for profit, any surplus made will go to support Radio Scouting in developing countries.

Duration:
The Award will begin at 00:00:01 on January 1st 2007 and finish at 23:59:59 December 31st 2007.

Bands and Modes:
The Award is available through all bands and all modes, within the terms of the individual’s radio licence. The Award is also available through Echolink and IRLP modes. The Award can be endorsed for any special modes or bands ie ‘All satellite contacts;’ ‘all QRP contacts,’ etc. Activity for the Award should be focused around the Scout frequencies.

Requirements:
Stations are required to contact Scout and Guide stations to count for
points as follows:

* Each ordinary Scout station counts one point.
* Special Event Scout stations count 2 points.
* The World Jamboree, Gilwell Park and Brownsea Island stations count 5 points.
* Your logs should be verified as accurate by 2 other local radio amateurs.
* Normal log information is required with the following additional information: Name, Scout details and age of the operator of the station you contact. Your age should also be submitted when applying for Awards. Female operators send `YL’ as their age!

Website:
The Award is supported online by a website – full details of the award are available at www.scouting100award.org. An Honour Roll of Award holders will also be published on the website.

Contact: info@scouting100award.org

Saturday

I’ve been recovering from a cold, so I have been on as much as I’d like. I had a couple notable QSOs today:

W7DK/90: The Radio Club of Tacoma’s 90th Anniversary special event station. An ARRL-affiliated Special Service Club since 1920, the Radio Club of Tacoma will mark the occasion with a homecoming dinner October 21 and a week-long operating event with certificates. Special event station W7DK/90 will be on the air October 16-22, and for part of the event will put its “old oak rig” — a circa 1930 breadboard-style AM transmitter — on the air. “We have done some historical research, and it’s been very interesting,” says the club’s Peter Baker, AD7EU. One item that turned up was a W7DK QSL card from 1938.

JOTA: Jamboree On The Air — a nearly 50-year-old tradition — provides an opportunity to showcase Amateur Radio for Boy and Girl Scouts and Guides, Cub Scouts and Brownies around the world, some of whom will be part of the next generation of radio amateurs. I had a nice QSO with two Scouts up in Wisconsin. One Scout was a 2nd Class and the other Life.

CW QSOs: the first few on 20M and 30M had the op at the other end blazing away a little to fast for me. I then went down to the good ol’ Novice sub-band on 40M and had a nice QSO with Fred, KC2IOD. His callsign looked familiar and sure enough – I worked him when I activated the Old Point Comfort Lighthouse (USA-567) back in February.

FISTS: I received the latest issue of the FISTS periodical. Lots of good reading.

Saturday…..

Finally checked into the VA MARS net. The net started late and I had almost given up on it. I’m going to try and check in again tomorrow morning. I need to get around to raising the height of my inverted vee – I think it will better help my signal get out.

I was able to catch W1AA (Henry and Whitey) and their activation of the Highland Lighthouse (USA 110) out on Cape Cod. Whitey, K1VV, is usually out ever weekend doing a lighthouse activation – always has a nice signal.

Had a very nice Radio Merit Badge class for a young Scout out at Fort Monroe in the afternoon. I setup my 10′ x 10′ shelter and the ARSIB. Initially I planned on setting the G5RV (like during the W4M Memorial Day Special Event) but the wind was quite heavy, so I opted to put up the homebrew vertical dipole. To get some height on the antenna, I attached it to the top of the painter’s pole. Before I had a chance to tie down the pole, a gust of wind knocked the antenna down. The fall caused the feedline connection to break off. Not good. However, with a little bit of wire and some electrical tape, I was able to reattached the feedline connection. Now the antenna was low to the ground and I was a little concerned about it’s performance. The Scout arrived and we started reviewing the Radio Merit Badge requirements. I was able to easily tune WWV on 15 MHz and was also able to find a CW QSO in progress on 40M. Also demoed a bit of CW using my MFJ paddle that has a speaker built in. After we’d reviewed all the requirements, it was time for the HF QSO. The Scout called CQ and after a few tries, received a reply from Charlie, N1MUQ, in Stamford, CT. Charlie had a booming, solid signal and the Scout was able to successfully complete the QSO. We then moved to my mobile VHF rig and the Scout had a nice QSO with Randy, WB7URZ located up in Gloucester. Even with the antenna setup issues, the Radio Merit Badge session was a success and I think both the Scout and I had a good time.

A few updates from the shack….

Scouts: received my Radio Merit Badge pamphlet in the mail today. Between the pamphlet and web resources, I want to put together a course package for the merit badge. One of the gentlemen I work with has a son who is interested in pursuing the Radio Merit Badge… so I need to get crackin’.

Army MARS: put in an application for Army MARS. The VA state rep told me it will be a couple weeks before I get my MARS callsign and initial training information.

US Army Amateur Radio Society: picked up a few more members. need to make contact with the Iraqi folks to check on the status of the pending YI9 applications.

DX: made contact with one of the newest DXCC entity… Montenegro! The YU6AO Montenegro DXpedition team now has a Web page at http://www.yu6ao.info/ and a log search at http://www.yu6ao.info/log.html … I’m in the log!

eBay: purchased an ASTATIC D-104 microphone. Should be a fun project adapting it for use with my IC-706MKIIG.

Local ham swap: made a deal to purchase a SB-220 Heathkit HF Linear Amplifier! This should give me a little more motivation to improve my antenna situation. Also need to acquire an antenna tuner.

Lighthouse QSL cards: finished my QSL cards for the Bodie Island Lighthouse (USA-062) and the Currituck Beach Lighthouse (USA-212) activations. Some of the Currituck Beach contacts are getting a North Carolina lighthouse key chain/compass/thermometer. Tried to get those to fellow ARLHS members.

W4M Special Event Station QSL cards/certificates: everyone who had sent me a SASE has been sent a QSL card (and certificate if they provided a large envelope).

SkyWarn Net: checked into the Chesapeake Amateur Radio Service (CARS) SkyWarn Net. They had made recent improvements to their repeater and have greatly expanded the coverage.

Venture crew 59 – Jambo Scoutfest 2006

Venture Crew 59 will host a Special Event Station KC3BSA at the Jambo Scoutfest 2006. Jambo 2006 will be held on the Kutztown University Campus in Pennsylvania from May 19-May 21. There will be approximately five thousand scouts attending this event. VC59 will put SSB/CW, PSK31, SSTV, EcoLink, & 2M/6M stations on the air this weekend starting Friday evening.

VC59 will mail out a great-looking certificate for working KC3BSA. For QSL information and additional info click on the link below. We’ll be listening for you – KC3BSA!

http://www.crew59.org

72/73,
Ed, WA3WSJ

Lunchtime QSOs

Had two QSOs during lunch – the first with 6W8CK – a station in Senagal – my first African continent contact!

The second contact was with W7PAQ (Frank) in Montana.

From his QRZ.com entry:
I was a systems engineer with IBM for 30 yrs. I joined IBM in ’66 and worked on the very early IBM 360s. My first IBM computers were an IBM 7094II and IBM 7074 at the Univ. of Penna. Physics Dept where I was a scientific programmer for 3 years. After retiring from IBM I spent 10 yrs with InfoShare as the CTO (part of AtlantiCare Health System) in Egg Harbor Twp, NJ. Resident of Cherry Hill NJ for 31 years before the xyl and I retired and moved into the Lolo Mtns of western Montana.

I am active in the BSA and serve as Unit Commissioner and Eagle Board Chair for Mullan District.

The house sits up at 4700′ and is 1.5 miles up a forest service road with 7 major switch backs. We usually have our Jeeps in 4×4.

… and eham.net:
– Year born: 1941
– I am originally from… Philadelphia PA
– Previous calls: N2PAQ
– My marital status is… Married
– XYL/Kids/Grandkids: Jane/2/0
– I got interested in ham radio because… Ham in our Scout Troop taught me Morse code in ’54
– My favorite thing to do in ham radio is… Because? Chase DX..challenge
– My equipment consists of… Kenwood TS570 and 440. Yaesu FT897 Kenwood TH-D700G Yaesu FT5100 Yaesu VX=7R
– I am a member of the following ham radio clubs… Hellgate ARC
– I am most proud of the following accomplishments in ham radio… 313 DXCC, WAS< WAZ Alexander the Great Award Worked All Africa - The funniest thing that ever happened to me on the air was... Contacted XE1/NP2AQ (my old call was N2PAQ) and we both had problems with the calls - The biggest pileup I ever heard or busted was... YA and P5 - I would like to try the following new things in ham radio in the next 10 years... Satellite - When I'm not on the radio, you can normally find me... 4x4 in my Jeep with APRS. Deep space photography with my 11" Celestron telescope Unit Commissioner and Eagle Board Chair Boy Scouts of America

I checked with findu.com – and it looks like Frank has a weather station connected to his APRS. You can find his location here and weather readings here.

Frank mentioned he had a group of Scouts that he was working with this weekend to earn “Frost Points” – you earn a Frost Point for every degree below zero the tempature is when you are sleeping outside. I’m curious as to how many Frost Points will be collected this weekend!

I also asked Frank about his weather station – sounds like he has a nice setup:
I have a Peet Bros. wx station with a weather picture (displays 7 measurements plus wind direction). The Peet 2100 unit then feeds via a serial port Weather Display software running on one of my PCs… Every 15 minues (user controlled) Weather Display produces a text file that UI-View is looking for. UI-View32 then sends the wx report via rf and the internet. The internet address is one of 4 Tier 2 servers that I connect to.

Pretty simple setup.

Only issues I have are 80M seems to get into the wx unit (even with the filter) and I get 80mph wind gust readings. My Carolina windom is right above the coax from the outside wx station. Snow got here before I could move the antenna forward and away from the feed line from the wx station.

The Weather Display program crashes if my PC gets too busy and can’t service the serial port. It usually happens when I run a backup program or heavy graphics. I have run 24 days without rebooting or crashing…of course I was also away at the time.

I had the Peet Bros. heated wind speed and direction unit, but it would fail about every year because of the heated elements..so they recommended the non-heated version which so far even in all the snow and -5F seems ok.

I also send a wx report to about 5 of my neighbors with a daily summary and then a weekly summary…all from Weather Display.

If you need more info let me know and tnx for the contact

73 Frank

JOTA – 48th Jamboree on the Air – 15-16 October 2005

JOTA is an annual event in which about 500,000 Scouts and Guides all over the world make contact with each other by means of amateur radio. It is a real Jamboree during which Scouting experiences are exchanged and ideas are shared, thus contributing to the world brotherhood of Scouting The JOTA is a world-wide event. Units may operate for 48 hours or any part thereof, from Saturday 00.00 h until Sunday 24.00 h local time. It is for members of the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), and also for members of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS).

World Scout Frequencies:

Band	SSB (phone)	CW (morse)
80 m	3.740 & 3.940 MHz	3.590 MHz
40 m	7.090 MHz	7.030 MHz
20 m	14.290 MHz	14.070 MHz
17 m	18.140 MHz	18.080 MHz
15 m	21.360 MHz	21.140 MHz
12 m	24.960 MHz	24.910 MHz
10 m	28.390 MHz	28.190 MHz

Also on EchoLink: HB9S (World Scout Bureau)

The amateur radio station of the World Scout Bureau in Geneva, HB9S, will transmit directly from the office building for the 48th JOTA. Both HF radio and Echolink will be used. Your operators this year are:
Jochen Sulovsky, DK8ZM; Ernst Tomaschek, OE1EOA; Yves Margot, HB9AOF and Richard Middelkoop, PA3BAR.

While browsing the website I saw that there are weekly and monthly scouting nets that take place worldwide:

SCOUT NETS

Country	day	time	frequency	netcontrol
Denmark	Saturday	13.00 GMT	3.740 MHz
European Scout Net	Saturday	09.30 GMT	14.290 MHz	PA3BAR
Japan	3rd Saturday of month	23.00 local	21.360 MHz	JA1YSS
Norway	Saturday	15.30 local	3.740 MHz
Sweden	Saturday, even weeks	15.00 local	3.740 MHz
Sudan	Sunday	12.00 GMT	21.360 MHz	ST2M
United Kingdom	Saturday	09.00 local	3.740 MHz	G3BHK
United States	Sunday	20.30 GMT	14.290 MHz	K2BSA
World Scout Net*)	1st Saturday of month	22.00 GMT	Echolink 131124	PA3BAR

*) connect to node 106440 or 131124.