Many will wonder, seeing the title, what a Jamboree is. A Jamboree or JOTA (Jamboree on the air) is an international scout activity with the participation of radio amateurs, which takes place every third weekend of October (https://www.jotajoti.info).
Radio amateurs are asked to teach Scouts how to use radio to communicate with other Scouts around the world, and to also teach them about Amateur Radio: what it is, how to become one, what it serves but also about voluntary service of radio amateurs.
So we, as the Radio Amateur Association of Western Greece, after a communication we had, were invited to participate in Jamboree together with the 1st Scout System of Agrinio. Early in the morning of Sunday, October 19, we were at the scout offices. Trained in emergency communications, we quickly set up and tuned a dipole for 40m (7MHz), and started broadcasting as SZ1A/J.
We talked to the more than 15 children who gathered, about amateur radio, the phonetic code – alphabet and we explained to them how to use the radio to make contacts. We came in contact with several scouts throughout Greece: Larissa, Kalymnos, Chios, Kranidi and Heraklion heard “our calls”. At the same time, other contacts were made with other fellow radio amateurs. It should be noted that participation in this year’s JOTA was significantly reduced due to the coronavirus pandemic. Our thoughts were of course with our friends and colleagues in Kozani who could not participate due to the bans in place, but also with all of our other friends who had similar difficulties and reluctance to participate due to the pandemic.
The communication with the 4th system of air scouts of Heraklion, Crete especially impressed the children since all the scouts from both systems got a chance to communicate with each other via radio, and exchanged “battle cries”.
This year will be remembered by everyone mainly due to the coronavirus pandemic and the use of masks throughout the event. We hope next year will be back again without the need for masks…
From RAAWG – SZ1A, the following members took part in this year’s JOTA event: SV1CQK, SV1DPI, SV1HKR, SV1JMC, SV1CQR and SV1CIB, and we thank them very much for their participation!
