Fun evening with local Scouts
‘You mean it’s not connected to the internet?’
‘Is it encrypted?’
‘How far will these signals go?’
‘You built a satellite antenna using a tin can?’
Just some of the questions from Wythall Radio Club’s Communications Evening with 1st Tidbury Green Scouts.
What can you do with 30 keen Scouts in a 2 hour Friday evening session?
We wanted to give them a hands-on experience.
Our solution was to rotate each patrol of 6 or 7 scouts around 4 activities. A Scout leader went with each group so they could assist and also see each of the activities.
We always have a lot of success with ‘old school’ technology!
In this case, it was giving each Scout the opportunity to send their name in Morse code, to be decyphered by other Scouts. John M6KET used the Club’s CW gear plus his K2 in ‘test’ mode and soon dots and dashes were being sent from one end of a long table to the other end.
On the other side of the hall, the ‘beeps’ of licence-free handies could be heard. Chris G3YHF ran a session in which Scouts used the phonetic alphabet to spell out messages, to be received and translated by their colleagues at the other end of the hall.
Having mastered this, our 70cm repeater GB3WL was accessed and two of our Club members – Simon G4TVR and Martin G8VXX – spelt out their names, with the Scouts reciprocating.
They were excited to discover that Martin was operating from his narrow-boat.
Over in neighbouring Wythall House, digital sounds were emanating from the Darts Room. Ian M0LQY demonstrated how far his HF FT8 signals could go, and showed ways in which a computer-linked transceiver could be utilised.
Meanwhile, Neil G1TZC had his satellite station on-air and the Scouts had the opportunity to pass greetings messages with stations around Europe. They also leant about WebSDR if they wanted to do some SWLing.
Fortunately the Scout Hut is next to Wythall House, our Club’s HQ. We’ve learnt from experience running sessions for Cubs and Beavers that the large Scout Hall doesn’t absorb sound!
We were fortunate to obtain GB1TGS (1st Tidbury Green Scouts) as our special event call.
Each Scout was awarded the Communicator Badge at the end of the evening and a Certificate of Achievement from Wythall Radio Club listing what they had done.
Our Club team thoroughly enjoyed the evening and the Scouts were a delight to work with – keen, engaged and asking smart questions.
We’re looking forward to more engagement with our local Scouts!
See some of our previous activity with the Scouting and Guiding community….