JOTA 2011 report from OE1XJA/3

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For the first time jamboree-on-the-air (JOTA) took place this year at the stock ground of the scout group of Langenlois. The austrian amateur radio district 307 (Krems / Langenlois) and the club telescout built up an amateur radio station together and they did show the running radio station to the scouts and guides from the scout group of Langenlois and Wilhelmsburg. Because at this weekend the scouts had licence to talk to other radio amateurs, all the scouts in our shack had the possibility to talk to other foreign scout groups in the world.

THE PREPARATION

Roland Spannagl, with 14 years one of the youngest licensed radio amateurs in austria - and meanwhile with his own callsign OE3CTS - got in contact with Maria Engelbrecht, one of the scout leaders of the scout group Langenlois and so he got the idea, to organize this year´s jamboree-on-the-air at their stock ground. Until at last it was not sure, if it will happen there. Some weeks before the JOTA weekend finally we got the OK and Michael - OE1CIW and Roland, OE3CTS wanted to show a completely special performance at the JOTA to the scouts and guides of the scout group of Langenlois, especially because this time we want to introduce the running radio station as well as possible to a group of 40 scouts and we want to give them the opportunity to become acquainted with things, that offers the JOTA.

 

At this year we had not so much preparation time because of my eye surgery at july and therefore we had to organize a lot shortly. For less than some weeks my home and my coin shop looked like a store of a radio amateur equipment dealer. There you have found items like two aluminium telescopic masts, a huge aluminium tripod, a mast foot with adjustable supporting feet, a 5 element yagi for 50 Mhz, an antenna rotor and the main event - a five band spiderbeam antenna for shortwave and certainly aplenty other tremendously important items like upper bearings, aerial guy ...
The vantage at it: My wife Christine knows all these things exactly with their terms by now and no longer as in the past with the generaly term "junk" - hihi.
 

ASSEMBLING ANTENNAS AND RADIO EQUIPMENT AT THE SCOUT AMATEUR RADIOSTATION OE1XJA/3

In consequence of Rolands good contacts to the austrian district 307 we got a lot of assistance by their members especially assembling the spiderbeam antenna and the entire antenna system. For instance Werner - OE3HWU, Andreas - OE3AAU, Franz - OE3AHB, Manfred - OE3MLW, Edi - OE3EDW were always on the spot to build up the antenna masts and to erect the antennas - even at the later dismounting OE3AAU and OE3MLW were more than helping hands - THANK YOU !!!

Helpful promotion we have got also by Horst - OE3OOW, who made professionell photos from our special event station for a local news magazine.

The greatest challenge was definitely the spiderbeam antenna, particulary it has not been erected before and so everything hes been made completely from the beginning - mainly cutting to length and preparation of the different antenna wires. Because we could start friday as recently as two o´clock p.m. that was the greatest challenge, because at about six o´clock it was getting dark outside and first of all bitterly cold ! We were nevertheless very lucky because there were primarily no precipitations, otherwise it would have been really bad.

Assembling of the the still original packaged spiderbeam has proved to be time-consuming than thought and so the skeletal structure of the antenna has been erected on a sun shade supporting stand with the help of floodlight. The wire elements have to be prepared in the radio shack for the later installation at saturday morning mainly because it was getting susceptible cold in the night.

 

Early in the morning the spiderbeam has been finished and mounted at the mast. The installation of the upper bearing for the aerial guy of the antennas and the four aerial guy has to be fixed. In addition the second antenna mast with the 5 element yagi for 6 meters and a vertical for 2m/70cm has been assembled and the coaxial cables led to the radio station. Though we tried to put not cables lying around at the lawn as far as possible (tripping hazards), since we had about 45-50 scouts of all ages on the ground.

Due to the fact that we were busy with the installation of the radio station and the antenna system of OE1XJA/3 longer than expected, Werner - OE3HWU had the idea, to establish his own shortwave radio station with a magnetic loop antenna and a G5RV wire antenna to introduce a workable station to the scouts, which were mostly already arrived to their weekend camp.

Marisa - one of the scout leaders of the scout group Wilhelmsburg - had working knowledge of the morse code and she could give an understanding of morse signs to the scouts and guides, which came to the weekend camp and to the JOTA 2011 at Langenlois and so she was able to make an outside workshop at enjoyable autumn temperatures.

 
Everyone had waited for it:  At the beginning smiled at oversized rotary clothes dryer, the so called spiderbeam turned out to be an outstanding dx antenna for shortwave range from 14 to 28 MHz. The antenna was assembled with an antenna rotor G-450 C in a height of about 8 meters and so we were able to align the heard stations to the maximum signal strength directly from the radio shack with a control unit. Also the possibility to fade out unwanted signals worked perfectly and therefore a lot of contacts could arranged explicitly better than in the past.

 

 

Roland - OE3CTS gave a lecture at the beginning of the JOTA for the attendant scout and guides and had prepared hisself perfectly on it. Primar in fact planned as a lecture with a beamer now it was even better without it - so we got a perfect talk about Jamboree-on-the-air, which was hold outdoors. I could not have made it better  and Roland  asdasda and Roland made a very god job indeed.

Many scouts made their first radio contacts at the VHF station of Andreas - OE3AAU und so some radio stations around Langenlois have been reached by voice radio. Thereafter some tried also to work at shortwave - there the scout stations talked mostly in english language.

Moritz was one of the scouts, who were specially interessed in shortwave and how to make worldwide contacts and though he came alone many a time in our radio shack to see, which countries has been worked via radio. It was in particular interesting, that this year really many - also rare - countries have been active at the JOTA and from time to time the pileup at some stations were really quite strong and sometimes in secret we wished to have a big linear amplifier in our radio shack ...

 
In addition to the shortwave there was something, which catched the focus of all scouts: an even possible radio contact to the International Space Station ISS ! After an announcement at www.scout.org the flight commander of the ISS crew and active scout, Mike Fossum - KF5AQG, wanted to be active at the JOTA 2011 with hamradio from the ISS to give othe jamboree stations the opportunity to get in contact with him. Probably there were too many contacts with north america and at the euopean flyovers unfortunately we could only hear the beacon signal of the ISS - but anyway. The concern of the attendant scouts were tremendous and we could set a clock accordingly -  i have not ever seen scouts come to an event so accurate, hi !

 

The radio contact with the ISS - or at least a voice radio signal from the space station - got a pipe dream unfortunately. In favour shortwave conditions were excellent and sometimes we had the choice for severaö calling stations. A great many of jamboree stations from the Netherlands were active like every year, conspicious were the great participation of worlwide jamboree stations - or did we have really an excellent working spiderbeam this year ?

 

Michael - OE1CIW was going to work with morse code actually, but at those phantastic signals at the conventional voice radio frequencies of the JOTA stations his intent was doomed to failure and so we worked mainly at phone frequencies on shortwave in english language.
 

The fascination of voice radio on shortwave and the worldwide contacts infected the whole scout group with its excitement an so the microphone could pass around the scouts and guides again and again and many attendant scouts made worldwide contacts with other jamboree stations.

Concluding i would like to thank quite cordially in the name of the club telscout (CTS) to the scout group of Langenlois  for your accomodation, for your helpfulness and for the good cooperation !!! You have really an excellent team there, where someone is in good hands - also the touch with the scouts of Wilhelmsburg was great ! At the installation the radioamateurs of the district Krems / Langenlois were a very big help !

We hope, that anybody of the scouts could benefit from the jamboree-on-the-air and you will keep us in good memories. Roland and I enjoyed the JOTA absolutely and we would like to come back very much, because we felt really comfortable at your scout group. 

Until now this JOTA was the most beautiful jamboree with a large margin what i might to participate, especially because so many scouts were interested what´s going on there. Following the idea of the scouts you have optimal supported the event and i´m sure, this doesn´t happen everywhere !

Hope to see you again at the next JOTA 2012 - be pepared !
Roland - OE3CTS and Michael - OE1CIW