Jamboree on the Air is the annual joint activity between Scouting and Ham Radio. Held worldwide for 48 hours on October 15th and 16th. Many Amateur Radio groups all over the world will be helping Scouts and Guides make contacts via various modes and bands, including our satellites.
I will again be managing the JOTA effort at the National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas using call K2BSA/5. Although this is a daytime only operation Saturday, we hope to run SSB and FM passes of VO-52, AO-27 and AO-51 as well as tracking some beacon passes. Unfortunately there are no good ISS passes for our part of the US during the daytime hours.
My encouragement to the satellite community is to please give way to any of these JOTA groups you might hear throughout the weekend. We have a wonderful opportunity to influence the upcoming generation of potential Hams and successful JOTA contacts work toward that end.
In short, Let the Scouts have the birds this weekend, or at least, give a JOTA station a call. You will be glad you did and the Scouts will be quite impressed.
Tom Schuessler 2713 Lake Gardens Drive Irving, Texas 75060 972-986-7456 214-403-1464 (Cell) n5hyp@arrl.net