11/22/2009 | K2BSA/5 The National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas hosted their first ever Jamboree on the Air event this past October. Via the Irving Amateur Radio Club and other hams from the Dallas/Fort Worth area and through the Circle Ten and Longhorn Scout Councils with support from BSA headquarters International Department, some 400 Scouts and guests experienced a free day at the museum and participated in many Amateur Radio activities. We ran 5 operating positions, HF phone, HF PSK31, IRLP 1 and IRLP 2 plus a VHF station for local communications. There was also a demonstration of amateur satellite communication at various points throughout the 9:00am to 5:00pm event.

The highlight of the event was to be a scheduled ARISS contact at 4:53 pm local time. The contact however was not successful due to an uncharacteristic snafu between AMSAT, the telebridge station in Hawaii and NASA. Despite the failure, having the opportunity was exciting enough.

The City of Irving also participated with the event by bringing out their Emergency Command Post vehicle for tours and to give out emergency preparedness materials.

Scouts who attended were treated to a free lunch and were able to take advantage of the ham stations scattered around the exhibit area as well as various JOTI computers set up by Microsoft for text chatting.

24 hams from various clubs and organizations throughout the area joined in to help and several additional walk-on hams assisted throughout the day.

Plans are already being formed to improve the event for JOTA 2010. -- N5HYP