ARASWF Helps Local Boy Scouts with Jamboree on the Air

On Saturday, October 19, 2013, local Boy Scout Troop 52 with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Naples participated in the 56th annual Jamboree on the Air (JOTA). The event was hosted by the Marco Island Civil Air Patrol and volunteers from the Amateur Radio Association of Southwest Florida and the Marco Island Amateur Radio Club helped put on the event.

JOTA is an annual event in which Scouts around the globe speak to each other by using Amateur (ham) Radio. According to the World Scout Bureau nearly 700,000 Scouts participated in the 2012 event.

Multiple ARASWF members volunteered their time to help the Boy Scouts. Mark Harms (AC4ZM) manned the radio to find contacts for the boys while Ed Esborn (K1UQE) and George Tomlinson (AA4GT) helped teach the boys the radio merit badge.

“Our first Jamboree on the Air was a huge success. Among notable contacts the boys made was a station on a real battleship, the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, Virginia” said Paul Burke, Scoutmaster and ARASWF Club Member (KK4TPO).

Other highlights included an inside and out tour of the Civil Air Patrol’s plane, meeting the pilots and commander, as well as seeing the plane take off for a real mission.

The clubs efforts were recognized in the Marco Island Sun Times.