This coming Saturday & Sunday (1500 UTC to 1459 UTC) ther is the Worked All Germany contest, so activity in Europe could be at a high level on; SSB, CW: 3,5 - 7 - 14 - 21 - 28 MHz.
HOWEVER - this contest has the following “contest free zones” defined (to help JOTA stations but of use to SOTA activators as well).
If you hear contest stations working within these frequencies, please let the WAG Manager know - that is Christian Schneider, DL8MBS who can be reached via email wag-info(at)dxhf.darc.de or via twitter under @WAG_e. Offending stations can lose points or even be excluded from the contest results.
WAG has been working with JOTA for years and Scouting really appreciates it.
If SOTA activators want to work JOTA operators, I think that would be great. SOTA and Scouting are a natural fit. JOTA is not a contest. No scores, submitting logs is optional. If you hear CQ JOTA, CQ Jamboree, or CQ Scouts and nobody is answering, feel free to have a chat and tell them you are on a mountain. If you have Scouting experience, share that. If you don’t, ask about theirs.
Usually, most traffic is phone, with a lot of activity around 14.290. A complete list of recommended frequencies is at the BSA (US Scouting) site. That list is a bit more detailed than the international list.
Hi Walter,
I do believe some scout troops are in fact intending to operate from SOTA summits during the “Jamboree of the air” - so they could be called JOTA-SOTAs!
73 Ed.
P.S. I think SOTA chasers (as well as activators) should look out for and have a chat with the scout stations. After all this is one way people get into the Amateur Radio hobby - I know I did.
I’m always pleased to call scout stations, my kids were Sea Scouts - ironic as you can’t be much further from the sea in the UK than my QTH! - but it adds to the adventure as they work on water as well as land.
Compliments have to go to those who manufactured this years ago when both events had grown for decades to a size that this solution seemed to be the best. Like a new parking scheme in a neighbourhood it took time to get accustomed to, but at the moment we are a bit satisfied, but of course can only knock on wood continuosly…
Our usual recommendation if you hear a contester CQing in a contestfree segment: Call him quickly and friendly, because most of these operators are casuals operating for a few hours. And as they do not go for big scores they often hadn’t read rules beforehand. An info then as quick as possible helps all better than waiting to let a “file” grow.
So a good time to all on this big radio weekend - and of course contesters are happy for every call, also from summits and most of them are so eager for QSOs and well equipped that weak signals have a chance - it might be that QSO qualifying the summit
73 Chris DL8MBS
Special event call sign K6B in Palo Alto, California will be on the air for JOTA from 1800 to 0100 UTC, starting on Saturday. We’ll be running 100W on dipoles, so we’re entirely dependent on good propagation.
It was on the WA (Western Australia) news broadcast that I heard this (VK6) - here’s the text:
"Some stations may already have the equipment and just need some bodies to operate radios, it doesn’t take long to set up a portable station, and there is growing interest from some group in activating some SOTA summits for JOTA this year. "
