The JOTA/JOTI event was held over the 18-20 October 2024 weekend. The activities at the MWRS’s club venue were held on Saturday 19-October with the usual Battleship game over 2way radio, introduction to HF radio communications, build an emergency portable radio station from the ground up (literally) and introduction to morse.
Most stations worked on HF were on 40m which included VK2LE on 40m which was a JOTA station located at Kernell and the HMAS Vampire VK2VMP with Nic our ready and willing regular contact till 4pm. We also worked JOTA stations in Townsville and Bundaberg on 20m. I can’t recall the callsigns.
After 4pm when we lost access to Nic we struggled for contacts. We eventually moved to 20m as one of the scout leaders was Spanish and asked if we could contact Spain. Immediately there was a Spanish station working someone and we had tuned into an extremely strong long path Europe opening.
ZL2JAS could be clearly heard working Italy. I joined in and worked the Italian station which was south of Rome to demonstrate that we could communicate that far. Sadly the group rotation happened right as I completed the contact or we would have tried some more JOTA DX.
With the next few groups we returned to 40M and established contact with a VK3 station in Ballarat who was very weak and then we were rescued by a station in Dubbo who was very strong and helped me out till the end of the day.
When I asked some of the groups what their favourite sessions at JOTA were. Many of the Scouts enjoyed the HF session, building the doorbell kit and Battleships. Sadly we didn’t think to include this question till the last 3 or 4 groups.
From Pat VK2PN: “Geeeez, I’m glad that you are still using the CW “senders” I’ve made more than 20 years ago.“
As usual, some members were on hands from their QTH monitoring the band to support call backs. This year this included Brendan VK2YMI and his daughter Brianna. Brianna, who is of similar age of many of the JOTA’s participants, made excellent QSOs with the JOTA teams testing their portable build-a-station.
Around 80 scouts and 20 leaders attending. Whilst HF was very challenging, we raised a lot of interest into the hobby.
From Colin VK2JCC: It was a great opportunity to introduce HF Radio to numbers of enthusiastic Scouts. I explained how radio waves could be heard around the world, how each country has its own unique callsigns. On the air we communicated with fellow JOTA stations in Newcastle and on the South coast. The kicker was one childs parent asked me” how do you go about getting a Radio Licence”. They were shown the ARNSW website. Was it a success? Yes it was and I will be happy to back up again next year as it is important we have new people join the best hobby in the world.
Richard VK2SKY activated a portable station at the JOTA camping site at the Terrey Hills High School Saturday evening, a bit of nostalgia on how we used to run JOTA. “Teetering on the edge of Chaos” describes it well HI! – VK2SKY
From the Electronics base at the school, we had a 100% success rate with the kits. 83 youth went home with either a doorbell, or an Arduino kit with various inputs (LDR, potentiometer) and outputs. (LEDs an speaker). We had Rover scouts (18+) , 2 leaders and JD and Simon assist this year. They were quick to learn the kits and help the kids with the assembly.
We are on the lookout of a suitable kit for next year already. Suggestions welcome.
Thank you to the following members for their devotion to making JOTA a good experience to the local Scouts and Guides:
- VK2ARH Richard
- VK2AXC Brian
- VK2DH Robert
- VK2DI Mark Salmon (HMAS Vampire)
- VK2EAH Andy
- VK2JCC Collin
- VK2MYK Nic (HMAS Vampire)
- VK2MZZ Jeff
- VK2SKY Richard
- VK2TGJ Des with Logan
- VK2TGO Geoff
- VK2THT Sean
- VK2TMF Mal
- VK2VCG Chris (HMAS Vampire)
- VK2XE Greg
- VK2YMI Brendan with Brianna
- Various members providing HF and 2m call back from their QTH.
Update 25 October: We Made the News!
Northside Living News ran a feature about the JOTA weekend: good publicity for the club!
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