12/28/2009 | KC0AHN JAMBOREE-ON-THE-AIR
AT
WEBELOS Woods 2008
QUIVIRA COUNCIL
October 17, 2009


White Buffalo District, Quivira Council held their Fall WEBELOS Woods at Camp Kanza during the Jamboree-on-the-Air (JOTA) weekend and invited local hams to participate. This is our fourth year supporting the scouts at WEBELOS Woods and this year Ron Cowan, ARRL Section Manager for KS join us. Camp Kanza is about 1 hour northwest of Wichita, KS. The JOTA event was one of the positions in the WEBELOS Woods rotation. Every scout had the opportunity to get an overview of Amateur Radio and talk on HF or 2 meter radios. The event made 71 contacts and had 310 Cub Scouts talk on the radio. Every year the number of Cub Scouts that get on the radio increases. Many of the scouts are returns from last year and they look forward to getting on the radio again.

WEBELOS Woods was setup up for seven 50 minutes sessions with about 40 Cubs each. The event operated under the BEARS club call, KC0AHN. The area was setup with 5 stations: overview discussion; HF radio on a DX-LB Plus antenna; HF radio on a 20M Hi-Gain vertical antenna, pared with a 2 Meter/70cm Yagi pointed to Hutchinson, KS; 2 Meter VHF radio on a Yagi pointed to Wichita; a 70cm radio pointing to Sterling, KS, which has a connection to the K-Link repeater net. Each session started out in front of the Professor (James Whitfield N5GUI) for an overview of Amateur Radio. During the overview, groups of 5 were pulled off and sent to the radio stations. Every Cub who wished to talk on the radio had the opportunity to make a contact on at least one radio.

Some of our distance contacts were: Midway Carrier (San Diego); Otario, CA; South Carolina; Montana; 209th Bristol Scout Group via K-Link (VHF) and Echolink to England; Colorado; South Dakota; Texas; Iowa; And many others.


The station setup began at 1:00 PM on Friday, October 16, 2009. WEBELOS Woods started at 9:00 AM October 17, 2009 and ended at 6:00 PM. All the antennas came down and were packed in vehicles by 7:00 PM. The rest of the equipment was packed up and we left by 8:35 PM.

The following stations were operated:

HF-1: ICOM 706 feeding a DX-LB Plus at 30 ft.

HF-2: Ten-Tec Omni-D, feeding a Hi-Gain vertical HF and Yaesu FT-857 for 2M/70cm. We pushed the 70cm with 100Watts.

VHF-1: Yaesu FT-100 feeding a 2M Yagi at just short of 50 ft. We pushed this with 200Watts and still had trouble reaching Wichita, KS after noon.

VHF-2: Yaesu mobile, feeding a 2m vertical. This connection was to Sterling, KS to connect to the K-Link system (http://ks0lnk.wavedsl.net/) linking about 15 repeaters in central Kansas, with Echolink on one node.

Amateur Radio Participants:

ac0eg Harvey event facilitator

n5gui James - Professor

kb0sqq Sherry Operator

wa0n George Operator

wa0rox Cliff Operator

kc0ifq Dennis Operator

kb0dti Ron Operator ARRL Section Manager, KS

n0ld Randy Operator

ks2v Brad Operator

kd0icp James Operator

n0ggr Steve Operator

n0ujq Justin - Operator

We also had a SKYWARN handouts, thanks to the Wichita National Weather Service Volunteer Coordinator Sherry (kb0sqq).

Thanks to the local repeaters and the many operators that helped make this a learning experience for the scouts.:
Hutchinson Repeater, Hutchinson KS - 146.67
Wichita Amateur Radio Club, Wichita KS - 146.79
Air Capital Tec-Ni-Chat Amateur Radio Club, Wichita KS - 146.94 and 444.000
K-Link at Sterling KS on 444.450

Attached are some pictures from the event. More pictures from the event can be found at: http://WEBELOS-Woods-2009.whitebuffalodistrict.info.

Harvey Jones (ac0eg) -- AC0EG