Scouts at JOTA 2009 - 17-10-2009
Eight scouts (and three leaders) recently attended the JOTA 2009 event hosted by the Harwell Amateur Radio Society (HARS) at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL).
Several members of HARS were on hand to show the scouts how to listen to stations around the world, and most even got the chance to talk "on the air" to other stations in the UK and abroad. The station at RAL was temporarily renamed to GB0SSO (the callsign assigned for Scouts South Oxfordshire) for the weekend of 17th/18th October.
Marc was able to chat to a station in the Netherlands where they discussed scouting, and in particular Sea Scouts. Other scouts chatted with a station in Banbury. Ray, a blind radio operator, helped all by handling the formalities of the station along with several other members of HARS.
The scouts had free reign over a radio receiver. This allowed everyone to have a go at "twiddling knobs" to listen in to whatever stations were transmitting. Since most scouts have never seen a radio with a tuning dial I'm sure this was a first for most of them.
Everyone also had a go at sending and receiving morse. This fast disappearing skill is not required for radio operators any more, however, it is staging a bit of a come back. Everyone had a great time on both a traditional morse key and the use of the Iambic key (twin paddles). At the same time they got to see "slow scan TV" - the ability to send and receive images using a computer connected to a radio.
Lee rolled his sleeves up and used his extensive electronics skills to help everyone build their very own colour changing LED badge. The badge had been designed specifically for JOTA 2009 and was a lovely keepsake of the weekend that everyone was able to take away with them.
The afternoon was finished off with a visit to the space centre at RAL where everyone heard about the ground breaking research that is done there, and some of the projects that RAL has been involved with over the years. RAL continues to be a centre for designing and building satellites. Everyone also had a chance to look at some of the equipment used during the Apollo missions to the moon.
The HARS has recently been licensed as a training and certification centre for Radio Amateurs and several scouts have expressed an interest in attending the Radio Ham Foundation course. This course will likely be held early in the new year. If anybody else is interested in doing this course please email us (click here) and we will put you in touch with the HARS.
Taking and passing the foundation course will give the guys permission to use some frequencies using a fairly low power, but it is a great introduction to the world of amateur radio.
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