JOTA (Jamboree On The Air) 2026

This year JOTA is on Saturday October 17.

In 2024 Miami Valley held a Council wide Camporee at Wolf Creek Rod and Gun Club at 6700 Derby Road in Dayton near the Montgomery County fair grounds. That’s where the Camporee will be this year also.

DARA has been asked to provide a Ham Radio experience for the scouts again this year. I am hoping to provide 3 stations, a 20m HF station, a 40m HF station and a UHF/VHF station. Last year the UHF/VHF station was very useful and a great addition to the HF stations. Last year we were able to have several hams available on the Huber Heights Amateur Radio Club repeater on 442.950. This year we can use the DARA repeater or HHARC repeater if there are operators willing to spend some time monitoring either repeater and chat with scouts. I will let the UHF/VHF station operator pick which they thing will do best. A lot of the hams that support JOTA belong to both clubs so I think its appropriate to use either one.

In the past we have also provided a Morse Code demonstration and a Fox Hunting demonstration which have been very popular. That is in the plans for this year as well.

We have also been asked to teach the Radio Meritbadge.

Set up will be Saturday morning early enough that we can be ready to start demoing at 9:00am We should be done by 4pm. If you would like to go out Friday and do some preliminary set up that would be OK. There will be someone out there in the afternoon. There is an old basket ball court right next to the parking lot which is where we set up in 2024 and I would expect us to use the same area this year.

So, what is needed from DARA to support this event?

Stations Operators: We need at least one operator per radio station and 2 would be preferable so that the operators can take breaks and still keep the stations active.

Greeters: There should be at least 1 greeter who can sign the scouts up and hand out blank QSL cards to the scouts so they have them ready when they go to a station.

Guides: I would like to see 2 guides that can take the scouts on a tour of our demo stations and antennas and explain a little about what’s going on and even go over some operating basics so the station operators don’t have to spend time doing that increasing the on-air time.

Merit Badge Instructors: Larry Sack, N8QNM, was the lead Merit Badge instructor at this year’s National Jamboree and has agreed to lead the team. He will have a couple of hams that are going to help him and he has already contacted them. He hopes to limit the class to 8 scouts.

Morse Code and Fox Hunt team: This team should have 3 or 4 people to help the scouts with the Morse Code trainers and to demo Fox Hunting. This will be led by Jane Deeter and Gwynne Jones.

I am hoping that the operators can bring a complete station to include radio, antenna, extension cords, power strips, tables and any other accessories they need. Shelters would be a plus. Each volunteer will need to bring their own chairs. We may need to find extra chairs for the merit badge class and 3 or 4 chairs for each operating station for scouts.

I have 2 10×10 easy-up type shelters that can be used for the Greeters.

I will also provide a Portable Power station for the operators that don’t have their own power. In the past I have provided a generator but I think the power station I have should be able provide power for 3 stations for the short time you will be operating.

73 de Ron, N8VAR