Wellington VHF Group, Inc: Online.

Wellington VHF Group were again privileged to be involved in the annual Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) event, this year in its 52nd iteration. Once again our friends at the Paparangi Scout Group were hosting a JOTA station at their scout hall in Paparangi, on the outskirts of Newlands; we operated using the special callsign ZL2JOTA for the duration of the event.

Mark ZL1VMF, ably assisted by Rob ZL2WAL and Tom ZL2TDD, arranged a JOTA station for around 20 Scouters from Paparangi, Newlands and Johnsonville. Modes operated included VHF and UHF FM, IRLP and Echolink; this year we opted to focus on those modes which the three of us could easily and rapidly deploy to the Scout Hall.

The first task (as the weather closed in) was to have the scouts erect an antenna pole for ZL1VMF's 3-element 2M Antenna... the results were impressive - but not nearly as impressive as the work itself!

I'm not sure we'd ever seen anything quite so precarious!

The Finished Product, however, was quite effective.

With Marks FT8900R set up for 2M Operation, and one of the Group's Tait UHF's running on the National System across the other side of the room, operations began in earnest. Scouts who were not immediately on the radios were occupied with other tasks; some were working on Phonetic Alphabet and Morse Code stuff... others had to revert to board games for entertainment when the rain set in. (Infact, radio operations essentially had to come to a halt several times, due to the sheer noise level of the rain on the roof!)

Weather closing in from the South...

The master plan involved Scouts camping outside the hall in tents overnight on the Saturday, to allow the resumption of JOTA activities first thing on the Sunday!

Radio operations continued until about 2300hrs, at which point the radio operators headed home for a nice, cosy nights sleep in their own beds; the Scouts hit the Tents. Unfortunately, the wind and rain did not let up; by morning the inside of the Hall told a tale of broken tentpoles and very wet Scouts! But smiles were still to be found on everyones faces.

IRLP on the Upper Hutt 147.300 repeater had a bit of a workout; several contacts from far afield were made.

Jim ZL2APE, in his role of National JOTA Coordinator, dropped in and helped us out for a few hours. Here he can be seen assisting our Scouts with contacts on the National System... Don't mind the Tait with its lid off, all was under control!

Some of the Scouts were able to use their experience from previous years to good effect! A number were actually very confident on the radio - something that experienced JOTA operators may note with surprise.

In amongst the JOTA activities I also looked in on the JOTI (Jamboree On the Internet) chat rooms and managed to arrange a SKED with PA6JAM, the Headquarters for Scouting in the Netherlands, via Echolink. This was all the encouragement needed for me to dig my Echolink credentials out and connect to the service for the first time in several years. Using Cellular Broadband, Echolink was very successful.

Mark ZL1VMF operating on Echolink.

Tom ZL2TDD held the Scouts interest with a demonstration of Surface Mount Repair. Fascinating to see how such delecate work can be performed with relatively conventional equipment.

A couple of short video clips taken by ZL1VMF...

The JOTA station wound up just after lunch on the Sunday, with contacts having been made with Russia, The UK, Germany, the United States, the Netherlands, Australia, Chile, and of course other New Zealand JOTA stations. Several excellent QSO's were had and the WVHFG Team were given a rousing thank-you to finish up yet another enjoyable JOTA. We look forward to 2010, and thank Paparangi Scouts for their hospitality.

My thanks to ZL2WAL, ZL2TDD and ZL2APE for their help and support, and to the others from WVHFG who provided equipment and enthusiasm to see this event succeed for another year.

Regards
Mark ZL1VMF
JOTA Coordinator
Images in this article courtesy ZL1VMF and ZL2TDD. Additional imagery thanks to ZL2WAL can be found at his Gallery.