JOTA 2024

Jamboree On The Air

I’m an Eagle Scout. I was very, very into the program as a kid and both of my children are involved in Scouting. Since I got my amateur radio license, I’ve tried to help out with Scouting’s event called Jamboree On The Air.

The first year, it was an afterthought. I had my compromise home station, but I was able to get my daughter (a Cub Scout at the time) on the air using D-STAR. She talked with more than a dozen other Scouts at a camp in New Mexico that morning. It was great!

This year, my Dad AC8NT volunteered to help a local Cub Scout Pack whose Cubmaster is a Tech to get on the air while at their campout which was the JOTA weekend. He did a meeting with the Cubs at the Club Site and talked with them at length about radio and what they would be able to do on the day of the event.

Yikes

The week before JOTA, my dad had a health event. He was not going to be able to take part in the festivities. I was already planning to be there and we had a couple of guys from our club who were committed as well. We would have a station running phone, a digital station, and a fox hunt set up for the Scouts. I also tossed my Zumspot in the bag for good measure. When in doubt, Reflector 033A on D-STAR was going to be a home base for Scouts per the published JOTA plan. We were in pretty good shape even without the old man. He needs the rest.

The Setup

Our club president set up his IC-7300 using power from the cabin the cubs were using. He had a nice EFHW antenna on a mast that performed really well for him. He was going to run phone and get as many kids on the air as he could.

I set up on a picnic table at a bit of a distance. I put up my Chameleon whip with extension and got my IC-705 on the air with WSJT-X. Because I didn’t know if I was going to be doing any phone, I brought along the Hardrock-50. I fired it up and was doing digital with an unthinkable 35 watts of pure RF fury!

We had the fox set up in a tree and our other club member showed the Scouts how to run the tapemeasure yagi antenna that my dad built for such activities. Everything worked. I don’t think we had a hitch more serious than a battery that didn’t seat itself right on the HT. It was uncanny.

On The Air

A solid JOTA strategy occured to the club president as he was calling CQ Jamboree for a bit. The Scout Camp, Camp Manatoc, is a part of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It’s inside the borders and is held to the same standards as the surrounding grounds. That makes it part of the park. That meant that we were activating US-0020 (something I do on a lot of weekends!). Well, my good buddy scanned around until he found a POTA activator in Rhode Island and just gave the old “Park To Park.” Well, that got us some attention. He gave his park and signal report and mentioned that he was at a Scout camp with a group of Cub Scouts. Would the ham mind chatting a bit?

He did not mind at all. Our operator in RI spoke to 12 Cub Scouts. A total gentleman. I wish I’d grabbed his call so I could send him a QSL card as thanks. The kids were pretty excited about that. We had that experience repeated with activators in other states as well. Makes me wonder if POTA shouldn’t have a JOTA overlay event annually that gets extra points for Activators who work Scouts or for Hunters who work activations by Scouts. There’s an idea in there somewhere.

We had a very notable contact. The son of the Cubmaster and the son of his brother-in-law were able to talk to their uncle in Chicago who is also a ham. They got in touch over 40-meters, I think. It was great to see the kids perk up and really get into it. They were especially excited because they knew it was possible but weren’t sure that it would happen. Thanks to the ionosphere for making that work for us.

Activation

Just sitting there I pulled in 26 FT8 contacts while I showed the kids how computers can talk over RF almost like using WiFi. They were pretty impressed and kept up better than I might have expected. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that I was really getting out using my massively overpowered station. Contacts happened on 30, 17, and 12. Not too shabby! Bands I don’t usually work to boot.

I wish I’d done some CW, but I decided to stick to the computer as the kids were really into that.

QSO Map

Here’s the QSO Map for the activation:

Final

My dad did stop by for about 15 minutes to see how we were doing. It was a great time. The weather was fantastic and the kids seemed to really enjoy it. It was nice to get out and make some contacts with the Scouts.