Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) was this last weekend. According to the Scouting website, “Jamboree-on-the-Air, or JOTA, is the largest Scouting event in the world. It is held annually the third full weekend in October. JOTA uses amateur radio to link Scouts and hams around the world, around the nation, and in your own community.”
It’s hard to get younger kids to make contacts during JOTA, but one thing that they can do is to send their names in Morse Code.I have a sheet that spells out the dits and dahs of the alphabet (shown below), and after showing a youngster how to send one character, they quickly pick up how to send the other characters.
Walter, K6WRU, Radio Scouting Chair for the Pacific Skyline Council, reported that this was a popular activity at their Jamboree on the Air activity held in Los Altos, CA this weekend. He noted, “I was worried that the keyer speed might be a bit fast, but kids fingers are fast.”
He goes on to report, “We had 21 youth visit and they all enjoyed spelling their names in Morse code and in the phonetic alphabet. We also had ARDF (fox hunting) and on-air conversations on VHF and HF.”
John KE5ETX says
I have ran a few JOTA events. Kids love morse, there is no doubt. Our club president has an old home brew key with some sort of buzzer. Very annoying and dirty enough to both the HF station. :-) Had to skip JOTA this year, but am considering having them build morse machines out of altoid tins next year.
My daughter and I went to a ham fest sunday, at her request we listened to morse study on the way.
Thanks for all you do.