Cray Valley Radio Society took part in Jamboree On the Air (JOTA) – the annual collaboration between Scout groups and radio amateurs – at Severndroog Castle on 19th October.
Set-up took place on Friday evening, with everything put together and tested in under two hours.
Last year, there were a few equipment problems, and this year Guy G0UKN gave the club’s triband rotatable dipole a complete service.
2M VHF FM was used to compliment HF at the GB2RE station to ensure that the young people could make radio contacts when HF was difficult. The Morse Appreciation area was inside a Gazebo with the sides attached to protect the occupants from weather and onlookers.
On the morning of the event all the CVRS people were where they needed to be from the word go, and despite some early rain everything went to plan and at 9AM all three bases were up and running.
The Fox transmitter had to be put somewhere different to where it’s normally hidden due to slippery ground. During the second group’s activity, it was realised that a net was taking place on the same frequency as the foxhunt beacon! Once this was realised, Guy G0UKN called into the net using the special event callsign GB2RE and politely asked if they would mind moving the net to a different frequency. They were happy to do so. The fox transmitter is 200mw and had 20dB of attenuation before the whip aerial yet one of the net operators mentioned he thought he kept hearing Morse on the frequency. He was in Banstead in Surrey!
That was literally the only hiccup the entire day. The radio station didn’t make lots of DX, as the main frequencies used were 2M FM and 40M SSB. Dave G3RGS and Bob M0MCV were able to contact quite a few special event GB stations and let the Scouts/Beavers/Cubs talk to each other. Some had a lot of fun being able to chat to Scouts in different parts of the UK, and all were happy to be able to do that, which was the aim of the game.
The most popular event of the day was the Morse code table. It really fires the imagination of the kids, from the youngest to the eldest. The team of Morse tutors
did a fantastic job of getting the kids to really get involved and they all wanted to learn the code and get the message decoded quicker than their friends!
The last group left at 5.30pm and the pack-down went as smoothly as the set up.
Thanks to everyone who came along and helped, both during the event and for
set up and tear down. Everyone made a huge difference.
Here’s a message of thanks sent to Guy G0UKN and Cray Valley RS, received from one of the Scout leaders:
I would just like to say a very big thank you to you and your teams for the fantastic time our Cubs had yesterday. Please pass on our thanks to your team of people who gave up their time for us.