With the exception of the recent Jamboree On The Air operating event held just last month, this past weekend may be our second biggest weekend for the station. The WD9BSA VE team hosted our second amateur radio licensing session Saturday morning at the Golden-Burke Scout Center. It was well attended and we were able to upgrade a General class to Extra, and two Techs to General class. A hearty congratulations to these hams for their hard work and eager attitude. Our primary team leader, Brian, stepped back this time as his son Andrew had come to upgrade to Extra. That made for a nice family activity.
Sunday was our normal monthly station operating hours. We hold this event the second Sunday of every month from 2:00-7:30 PM in the basement of the Camp Belzer Activity Center. This is a non-regimented activity for individual Scouts, Packs, Dens, and even whole Troops to visit the station and get on the air. We had a family of Scouts visit who included parents, a Webelos, and Boy Scout, and their daughter who is a Venturing Crew member. We made contact with a couple hams who were nice enough to take the time to speak with each of them. The second ham we spoke with was even operating bicycle mobile down in Huntsville!
Later in the afternoon we hosted a Den of Tiger Cubs. Did they ever have some enthusiasm! They were there to earn their Achievement 4G: Go See It! We discussed all manner of communications from commercial broadcast to FRS walkie talkies like you pick up at the department store. We put them on the air with real amateur radio 2m HT’s and were later able to put some of the boys on the main HF station to speak with a ham in Alberta, Canada. We looked up the station’s callsign on QRZ.com and also used maps to point out geographical locations. Of course all manner of props for the boys to handle made for a lot of fun.
Near the conclusion we were able to perform another licensing session for a Scout who wasn’t able to attend on Saturday. We’re pleased to announce that Jacob F. is now our VE team’s first licensed Scout. He’s a Senior Patrol Leader of Troop 753 in the Sugar Creek District. Congratulations to Jacob on earning the Tech class license. As time goes on we hope to license more Scouts and charter an amateur radio Venturing Crew at the station.
Amateur radio and Scouting really compliment each other perfectly. The mission of both activities promote the STEM activities, preparedness, volunteering, social and geographical awareness on a local and international scale, and participation in new activities. WD9BSA is happy to provide these opportunities to the Crossroads of America Council.
WD9BSA Bert C Johnson Memorial Amateur Station 