Welcome to NORAC The North Okanagan Radio Amateur Club

October 18-20 2019 at BEAR Black Powder Club at Joe Rich Sportsman's Association, Kelowna, BC

Jane VE7WWJ and I, Mike VE7KPZ, just finished a fantastic day of working with 7 groups of Cubs and Scouts at our station, the "Digital Bunkhouse", at this years Scout JOTA - Jamboree On The Air.

We were joined by Mark VE7GPZ to deliver an action-packed session showcasing both APRS and Yaesu's System Fusion II WIRES-X offering. Jerremy VE7KZK also assisted by answering questions for the leaders attending our session.

Each one-hour session with the kids started off with an outside-of-the-shack tour of the antenna and feed line that Kevin VE7XY and I had installed the night before + Mark's really cool portable crank-up tower.

Then inside we went to start the show with a brief intro to APRS. Mark and assistant Jonathan VE7FWF, demoed APRS messaging, ocean-going ship tracking and then showed Jane and my chosen APRS SmartBeaconed route to the event.

We finished by getting the kids on the air working C4FM voice via WIRES-X, chatting with stations from across Canada, the USA, England and Australia.

Jane got each first-time operator to put a push-pin into a map of the world, showing their proudly made QSO. Below we see the Mikes reviewing the QSOs made.

WIRES-X was very effective in connecting with other Scouts thanks to Yaesu's dedication of room 21000 to the event:

We must also thank Fred VA7UN who offered up his personal WIRES-X node gateway for the event, and OCARC for the use of their Blue Grouse mountain DR-2X repeater, which allowed us to connect to Fred's node. Fred was also the one who forwarded us the info on the JOTA room above. We would have been ok without this info, but with it, we got a LOT of youth to youth QSOs in the log.

Now, it wasn't just about our station. Kevin VE7XY hosted the HF station making contacts on 20m all over North America. Mike VE7FI taught each group morse code at the CW station.

And then, it wasn't just about radio either. Other stations included pioneering (engineering with logs and lashing), orienteering (map+compass+gps), axe throwing, modern guns, black-powder guns, and other cool stuff.

Lastly, we would like to very much thank Paul VE7TKC and Mike VE7FI for putting on the event. Without their enthusiasm, this event would not continue to grow. With more than 100 youth travelling from the coast, Fort Mac, and all places in between, it was a very well-attended event.

Oh, and the food was great. Thank you to the volunteer chefs.

Hope to see more HAMs out volunteering to show off amateur radio next year,
It was fun,
Mike VE7KPZ
NORAC Vice-President 2017-2020, technical committee member and JOTA 2019 program volunteer

Ps: here's the badge we received from Paul on our departure. These will go on our campfire blankets.