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Least week I had the pleasure of volunteering at the 51st Scouting Jamboree on the Air at Camp Carpenter in Manchester, NH. JOTA is an annual event in which both Boy and Girl Scouts all over the world speak to each other by means of amateur radio. I was first exposed to JOTA in the early 1990s when I was an avid Shortwave Listener (SWL). I would tune around the bands with my rather ancient Hallicrafters SX-110 searching for the voices of other JOTA stations. I wasn’t a Ham yet and didn’t know any JOTA events in my area so I never actually talked to anyone, but I was glued to the radio for the weekend listening to far flung stations across the world.

Fast forward to two weeks ago when I got an e-mail from Barry Baines, WD4ASW. Barry is an AMSAT officer and was looking for someone to volunteer at Daniel Webster Council’s JOTA event. Apparently all the other area AMSAT officers were busy and since I helped at the AMSAT booth at Boxboro, they recognize a sucker when the see one know that I love to help out. Despite it being quite a hike and an all day event, I jumped at the chance. Partly to give back to Scouting, partly to gab about satellites, but mostly a an excuse to play radio all day. I was somewhat nervous, as I had little to no idea what was going to happen, what I needed to do, and what was going to be available too me. Still, I forged ahead and aimed to do really really well, or at least shovel enough BS to make myself sounding convincing.

An interesting side story is that after I linked up with Paul, KG7HF, the organizer of the event, I recorded the ISS. As I’m listening, one of the two stations that made contact with Garriott was none other then Paul himself. This is an incredible feat. The first thing I thought was “What the heck does he need me for?”

Saturday came and I loaded up my car with my (still not 100%) satellite yagi, my K5OE Handi-Tenna as a backup, my FT-60, my laptop, and some various satellite reference materials. I arrived, met Paul, and he showed me to my station. Paul graciously provided his TS-2000 and his laptop with his rig control software. Needless to say, I was pleased as this is like driving a Ferrari as compared to my setup, which is more like a Pinto. Paul had a 2M Eggbeater antenna and we kludged up a 70cm setup with his Dual Band mobile antenna as his 70cm eggbeater was not working. The Scouts started to trickle in, and we tried to have our first ISS pass. No voice contact, but the few Scouts that were around were amazed by the SSTV pictures. The next ISS pass was more crowded, and we were rewarded with hearing Garriott doing voice. While we were unsuccessful in contacting him, they Scouts were rapt in listening to the radio. There were a few Scouts who walked over halfway through the pass not knowing exactly what they were listening to, leading to a humorous exchange afterward:

Them: “So where was that guy?”
Me: “On the International Space Station.”
Them: “But where was he?”
Me: *confused* “Uhm. In space.”
Them: *not sure if I’m pulling their leg* “Like an astronaut?”
Me: “Yes. He’s up there for a week. He’s on board using their radio. His name is Richard Garriott. He’s a space tourist.”
Them: *eyes start to widen* “Wow!”

With our limited 70cm setup and my inexperience of tuning transponder based satellites, we were not as lucky on the other satellites. We were able to hear a few stations, but were unable to make a contact. However, all the ISS passes were big hits and at least had everyone talking about the contacts. I also worked out a script for the sSouts to handle the contacts to the ISS (with myself as the control operator). My research showed that ISS was not a foreign entity as long as Garriott was using NA1SS calsign (third party traffic agreements, what a crock!), so I let the Scouts take the wheel and just cued them as to what to say. I hope a few of them got bit by “the bug.”

It was a great day. I think the scouts had a great time, and I did as well. I’ve already told Paul to contact me for next year’s event. I met a couple of nice younger hams Devin, KB1OSI and Brittany, KB1OGL, and hopefully inspired a few more. I also have come to a conclusion that I need to get a better setup for satellites. I’ve barely scratched the surface in my setup and it would be fun to expand my satellite use into transponder based ones as well.

They also gave me a patch! I haven’t got a Boy Scout patch in YEARS! How cool is that?