I hope it’s acceptable to post little appeals for help from stations by regular SOTA folks involved in the Scout movement when we’ve an evening of amateur radio communications organised? This is inspired by the help given to Tom M1EYP’s pupils by the SOTA community.
As a Scout leader I sometimes demonstrate amateur radio to groups of young people. Tomorrow evening with Wolverhampton West Explorers is one such and my first time doing radio at their HQ.
All being well Tom M6GGZ and I will be on somewhere close to the Scout frequencies of either 7.090 or 7.190 MHz between 1930z and 2030z. If it works, and a few of you find him or me, we’ll change to M0YDH/A and hope to get the Explorers passing greetings messages.
These Explorers go mountain walking for the weekend so hilltop /P amateur radio may be interesting to them… One can but try.
Anyone interested in listening out for us and fielding those nervous greetings messages from 14-18 year olds?
73
David M0YDH
PS Jamboree on the Air is 19/20 October [worldwide] this year.
In reply to GW4VPX:
Thank you all who tried including those I telephoned with the frequency. The skip was too long for inter-G on 40m and the noise on 80m in Bilbrook made it unuseable. I worked DH3FEN and an Italian station. Hey my newly built HF Packer amp works a treat! I didn’t notice that the A index is at 41
It wasn’t a resounding success as I didn’t manage to get any scouts on the air on HF and we made do with a few 2m greeting messages with Tom M6GGZ out in the yard and some Morse name sending on practice oscillators.
Am I correct in thinking that using 60m for supervised greetings messages is not permitted?
Thanks again all. 2m fm SOTA on Friday from NW-013 if wx ok - at least that will work!
73
David M0YDH
I have just read the relevant parts of my licence & 5MHz NOV & I do not see anything that would prevent greetings messages being passed in the usual way. Section 3 of your licence, which covers operators is not varied by the NOV so I would say you should be OK, although a second, or third opinion would be appreciated.
Incidentally, 5MHz was working for inter G this evening, but short range contacts were via Aurora, as the F2 critical frequency was too low to support NVIS. Very strange warbly signals if you haven’t heard it before.
Midnight Hike Friday 20 / Saturday 21 November 2015 up the Wrekin G/WB-010.
Hi all
With good weather, Bosun and I will be taking 1st Fordhouses Scouts on a Midnight Hike up the Wrekin G/WB-010. I’ll go on air from the summit on 2m FM using my FT817ND radio and a plastic pipe dipole. Hopefully some of you will still be up and we can get the scouts to pass on some greetings messages.
I activated the Wrekin last weekend so I have had my point. If it gets cancelled I’ll post again.
73
David M0YDH
Assistant Scout Leader - 1st Fordhouses - Wolverhampton North
Watch out for the (alleged) ‘funny going ons’ in the car park in the dead of night…
I should be around at home by then, I’ll see if I can keep awake long enough
in the dead of night…