Over the weekend of 15th and 16th October About a dozen WADARC members took part in the Annual Scouts Jamboree on The Air. This year's station was run at the headquarters of the 20th Birkenhead Scout Group in Oxton (IO83LJ). At various times over the weekend we ran 2M, 4M, 10M,15M, 20M, 40M and 80M phone stations and a PSK station an several bands.

The site was a good location with excellent VHF take off and plenty of space for HF antennas. The 80M Dipole performed well, as did the club's tri-band beam and a G5RV for PSK. We also experimented with a Pro-Whip HF vertical. The VHF antenna was a Watson W30 Co-linear at 40 Ft.

Conditions on the bands were somewhat challenging with a lot of QSB and seemingly fewer stations on the air. Despite this, some of the contacts made were really good ones. The first QSO of the event was at 8:30 on Saturday morning on 15M when we contacted another Scout station in AKITA, central Japan. The operator couldn't believe that we were only on 100W when he was using 1000 and a 5 element beam.

The very last contact on Sunday afternoon was also interesting, A scout leader in Norway, 65 miles north of the Arctic Circle. He had been involved with Scouting since 1936 and is 90 Years old next week. There were also plenty of contacts into the U.S. and right across the U.K.

This year, the number of visitors from Scouting, was about 40. This is actually significantly more than in the last couple of years and nearly all of them spoke on air

All in all, if you didn't visit us .. you missed a great weekend !

Simon G6XHF