October 20, 2024
Over the weekend Scouts across the world were taking part in JOTA-JOTI, which stands for Jamboree On The Air-Jamboree On The Internet. This year, our Scouts were able to take part in more of the annual JOTA-JOTI than in the past, thanks to a local Ham Radio enthusiast with a connection to the group. The Scouts arrived nice and early Saturday at 9am and got their sleepover tents set up in the hut (keeps things warmer!) while the leaders set up the laptops loaned by the 85th. With a JOTI station, a dining area, tents and a JOTA corner set up and ready, the Scouts would be able to have a great time getting in touch with others all over the world.
Chris, the radio expert, arrived later in the morning, and the portable 10m aerial he'd built was assembled behind the hut, with the help of the Scouts. Once the radio was set up in the JOTA corner, the Scouts were able to start communicating with Scout stations all over the world. They made audio contact over the radio with Scouts in Switzerland, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Cyprus and Coventry (Earlsdon), as well as Morse contacts in Finland, France and Czechia. The Scouts learned to adjust the radio to tune in better to the other groups' signals, as well as to broadcast the call sign to try to get other groups to reply. They really enjoyed it and our signal was received all over the world!
The JOTI area made it possible for the Scouts to communicate through IRC (Internet Relay Chat) on ScoutLink, as well as to join other Scouts on a variety of Minecraft servers. It's always great to see them make contact with Scouts from all over the world, sometimes in other languages, and learn a bit more about the Scouting family they're part of.
Of course, there was plenty of food throughout the day, a film on Saturday night and eventually some sleep, with more JOTI on Sunday morning. Hopefully next year we can arrange some international video calls to add another element to the Scouts' JOTA-JOTI experience.
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