Swift Current Scouts Do JOTA

This article was published Nov. 1/18  in the Prairie Post.  We wish to thank Ryan Dahlman and Matthew Liebenburg for letting us put this on our website. Swift Current scouts were able to communicate with scouts around the world during the annual Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) with the help of local amateur radio enthusiasts. Members of the the Swift Current Group 2 Scouts spent time at Gowan's Grove, south of Swift Current, from Oct. 19-21, where they had the opportunity to use the radio equipment of Southwest Amateur Radio Club member Ray Gowan to talk to other scouts. Gowan and other local amateur radio enthusiasts have been teaming up with the Swift Current scouts for about 20 years to participate in this international event. “We started out just in different people's houses that had stations and then we did a couple or three at the airport at a club station we had there,” Gowan recalled. “Then probably for 15 years we've been doing them here.” Gowan's Grove, which is located next to the Swift Current Creek, is a great location for the scouts to have an outdoor experience while they also learn about amateur radio and technology. “They seem to have a lot of fun doing things besides radio,” he said. JOTA started in 1958 and takes place on the third weekend of October each year. The development of the internet resulted in the addition of the Jamboree on the Internet (JOTI) in 1997. Both activities are sanctioned by the World Organization of the Scouting Movement. JOTA-JOTI is the largest scouting event in the world. In 2017 more than 1.5 million scouts in over 160 countries participated in JOTA-JOTI events and the goal was to have two million young people take part in the 2018 event. Southwest Amateur Radio Club member Lloyd Fehr, who has been involved with the scout movement for about 30 years, said the Swift Current Group 2 Scouts was the only scout group in the province that specifically participated in the JOTA event this year through the use of radio equipment. “We want to do all the ham radio gear and grow the program, because it's a tie-in between ham radio and scouts,” he mentioned. “So you can get people interested into electronics and STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] fields.” During their time at Gowan's Grove the scouts participated in a radio direction finding exercise and learned about morse code. “We're teaching them morse code, we're teaching them how to do effective communication, we're teaching them how to do triangulation and tracking so that they can find things, communicate well and be more well-rounded scouts,” he said. During the transmitter hunting or fox hunting exercise the scouts used hand-held radio receivers to find a beacon. “There is a beacon sitting somewhere at Gowan's Grove and they are are going to try and find it using triangulation,” he explained. “So everybody has radios, they're listening for the signal strength, the stronger it gets the closer you are, and then using a little bit of math they can find the beacon and win a prize.” The radio equipment that were used for JOTA is set up inside a cabin at Gowan's Grove. The scouts gathered around the table and they took turns to talk to other scouts whenever Southwest Amateur Radio Club members made contact with another group. Fehr noted that the scouts talked about a variety of things of interest to them, such as their scouting activities, their favourite classes at school or their favourite sports teams, and the weather. Scouts in Dallas, Texas, were surprised to hear how low the temperature already was at the location where the Swift Current scouts were talking from. The interaction helped the scouts to gain a wider perspective on the world and to also develop an understanding of the shared experiences between them and scouts in another part of the world as they talk about common interests. “So it's kind of eye opening experience,” he said. “They're camping on a beach in Mexico. ... Here we're camping in a little grove. So getting to think outside of our little local area.” According to Gowan they made contact with over 80 stations over the weekend. The Swift Current scouts connected with scouts in Germany, Denmark, French Guiana, Brazil, Hawaii and various other stations in the United States. “It's just very interesting to reach out and you never know where you're going to find the next group,” he said. “It could be anywhere in the States or over in Europe. It's kind of exciting. It's interesting to see how, as the sun moves throughout the day, the stations come in from different areas.” He noted that the reception was good, even though the solar cycle is currently at a low point. On Saturday morning the connection with a station in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, was very clear and it was also good when they talked to a station in Hawaii on Friday night. “It was just like he was sitting on the hill over here, it was so clear,” he said about the Hawaii call. “It's been very good.” They had two different options to try to connect with jamboree stations during the weekend when making a CQ or general call. “Hundreds of jamboree stations are calling CQ and so you can just tune around and talk to the stations that are calling, and you could be quite successful just doing that,” he said. “If you can find an open space on the band, we'll start calling CQ and stations will start coming back to us. So there's people that move around and there's other stations that tend to sort of stay in certain places.” They have access to thousands of different frequencies, but they have to hunt around to find a useful one, because frequency strength will vary with conditions. “As the conditions change, some bands start to get better, some fade right out,” he said. “So you have to know which bands are active and watch. When the sun goes down this evening, the band that we're using right now will just completely disappear. Then other bands will open up in the evening. We have such a range of frequencies that you can usually find something that's open.” Gowan is hoping that their experiences during the JOTA-JOTI weekend will interest some scouts to become more involved with amateur radio. “We've had some young people, some of the scouts, actually get their license after they came out two or three times,” he said. “It's a good hobby. There's so many different areas that you can explore and whether you want to build antennas or build equipment or just buy stuff and get on the air with it, you can do lots of different things.”

This was the Band that provided the entertainment at the 1987 Hamfest in Saskatoon. These guys had never played together before. They didn't even get time to practice. A few of the guys had brought along their instruments and decided to "jam" for a while. Jim did not bring his guitar but one of the other guys had a spare and Jim was convinced to join them. They sounded so good that it was really hard to believe they were not a professional group. One of the kitchen staff who worked at the banquet even asked how to book them for a dance. Thanks to Ron, VE5RS for providing the picture From the “Remember Jim, VE5EB website: http://ve5eb.amateur-radio.ca

Canadian Challenge Sled Dog Races

On February 20th, 2005 the Lakeland Amateur Radio Association supplied communications for the Northern Lights Canadian Challenge sled dog races.

This race was from Prince Albert to Lac La Ronge and back to the Spruce Home Trail Riders Arena, the Lakeland group supplied communications from Elk Ridge resort to Anglin Lake (land of the loon), to Clarine lake, to Christopher Lake corner, to North side and back to the Arena at Spruce Home. The Race consisted of 23 dog teams, 17 – 12 dog teams and 6 - 6 dog teams, 15 teams completed the race.

The Lakeland Amateur Radio Association had a base station setup at The Spruce Home Trail riders Arena and a check-point at Anglin Lake, also two cars doing rover duty from Northside to Clarine Lake. We also had some of our members doing double duty as they helped out at crossing points on the highway when the race crews didn’t have enough people to cover, the exercise took from 7:30 AM till the last operators left at 7:30 PM.

The people involved were: Roly VE5RO,  Harry VE5HFH,  John VE5JJA,  Keith VE5HKC,  Isaac VE5IKE,  Tim VE5TJD and Wayne VE5DWT.

All pictures taken by John Alexandersen VE5JJA

Summer, VE5SDH (SK)

Hamfest 2013 in Battleford was the first Hamfest that Summer attended. During the short time that she was involved in amateur radio Summer left her mark.

She was active in many areas of the hobby and always eager to get involved and do her part.

She called many nets, especially on 2 meters and the IRLP.

She will be especially remembered for how quickly and proficiently she learned CW.

~ o ~O ~ o ~

Radio Operator Celebrates Her Birthday

This lovely lady just celebrated her 100th birthday with some special ham friends.

Standing: Brian Burke, VE5CUL, Mike Mikytyshyn, VE5MMG, Ned Carroll, VE5NED, Maurice Hill, VE5ADE, Tenho Tuomi , VE5TT
Lady of Honour: Wilma Smith, VE5WS