This weekend is Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) and on Saturday, I’ll be with K0BSA at the North Star Museum of Boy Scouting and Girl Scouting in North Saint Paul, Minnesota. K0BSA is sponsored by the Minnesota Youth Amateur Radio Council (MNYARC), and photos of previous JOTA operations are available on their website.
JOTA is an international scouting event which allows Scouts around the world to communicate via amateur radio with other scouts and other amateur radio operators. Our event at the North Star Museum is open to all Scouts, and to the public. It’s free of charge (although we encourage you to also visit the rest of the museum while you’re there, which does have an admission charge.)
This is the 58th annual JOTA, the first one being run in 1958. The illustration above is from the announcement for the 1959 version, which at the time was called Radio-Jambo. The call signs in the illustration were Scout headquarters stations around the world that were on the air that year.
The K0BSA call sign has been connected with the Northern Star Council of the BSA for many years, and I never realized that it had an earlier use. The 1960 National Scout Jamboree was held in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the only time the event has been held in “Zero Land.” There has been Radio Scouting at most, if not all, Scout Jamborees, and in 1960, the official station of the Jamboree was assigned the K0BSA call sign. While the quality of this scan is poor, he Scout shown at the controls of K0BSA in this photo is Steve Wood, K4FJO, of High Point, N.C., who was one of many guest operators of the station. On his QRZ.com profile, K5KG reports that he was on staff at the Jamboree trading post, and spent all of his off hours at the station.
The June 1960 issue of Boys’ Life reported that K0BSA would be operating on all bands from reveille to taps on both phone and CW, with Pedro clomping at the key or braying into the mike.
If you’re in the Twin Cities and have an interest in radio and/or scouting, please stop by and visit. The event is open to Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Non-Scouts, which should cover just about everyone. If you’re elsewhere, you can check with your local Scout council. And, of course, if you’re a Ham, please listen for stations calling CQ JOTA and help introduce a Scout to Amateur Radio.
I will also be counseling the Radio Merit Badge. Last year, about 20 Scouts earned the merit badge. “Back in the day” when I was a Scout, the merit badge required a knowledge of Morse Code, meaning that the Scouts who earned it usually did so after getting their amateur license. However, that has changed in recent years, and the merit badge is now more of an introduction to radio. My goal is to get Scouts interested in Amateur Radio, and a few of them have followed up by getting their license. I hope I once again have the opportunity to help Scouts who want to follow up and get their “ticket.”