[RTTY] JOTA Station during contest

[Vince]

This is a bit of information to let any stations that may have worked us and we sent that we
were a JOTA station during the JARTS contest, to know what it was.

I belong to the Hayward Radio Club, K6EAG, here in my area. The club was invited to participate in the 47th JOTA event, (Jamboree On The Air), on Oct, 16, 2004, from 9am to 4pm, where boy and girl scouts talk to other scouts around the world, and introduce them to ham radio. There was an article in the Sept. 2004 QST magazine, page 104.

The radio club set up a temporary station at the San Francisco Bay Area Council Boy Scouts of
America, in San Leandro, CA. We set up two HF vertical antennas and one VHF vertical antenna on the roof of the building. One station was set up for VHF. One HF station was setup for doing SSB and SSTV, and the other HF station I had set up was for the digital modes, PSK31, RTTY, APRS, and SSTV. The thinking was that many of the youth today are into computers and would enjoy this mode.

We had many young scouts and older ones as well come though the station in small groups at time. I do not know it was just band conditions or the temporary setup of the antennas, but I had found conditions very poor at the beginning of this event. this was on all bands and modes. This was the first time that we had operated from here, but the equipment used was the same that we use for Field Day. I like doing RTTY contests, and one of my favorites is the JARTS. Doing this event meant I had to miss much of the contest. So I thought to get on the contest to make the most of what I could find active on the bands.
We did not make a lot of contacts, but I would like to thank any stations that did work us.

One side note, When I had the Scouts sit down in front of the computer to operate the program, (Writelog), I would ask if they where familiar with using a computer, and it did not matter what their age was, they all said yes. I was not really to surprised at this.

I hope that maybe a few ham radio seeds were planted with the young people that came though this day.

Again Thanks to any Station that worked us.

Vince, K6BIR
Hayward Radio Club