This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
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for more information about ICOM radios. with
neoprap, here we go! Welcome to Amtoply, call
in, let's talk, Neil's your guy, Amtoply, here
we go! Hey, good evening, everyone. It's time
for HamTalk Live. It's episode number 171. The
World Scout Jamboree and Walmart parking lots
on the air 2019 recorded live on Thursday, June
27, 2019. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks
for tuning in to this episode of HamTalk Live
tonight. We're joined by Bill Stearns, Ne4RD,
Mike Crownover, AD5A, and Jim Wilson, K5ND. And
we will take your calls live in a few minutes.
Last week, here on the show, Bart Jahnke, W9JJ
and Paul Bork in one SFE were here to talk about
field day and take your questions. If you missed
the show, you can listen anytime. Just go over
to HamTalkLive .com or your favorite podcast
app or YouTube, or you can catch the rebroadcast
on WTWW 5085 AM Saturday mornings or Saturday
evenings rather. At about 6 30 p .m. Eastern
time so get your questions ready to go if you're
listening to us live on Thursday night you can
give us a call after the interview and that telephone
number to call is 8 1 2 6 5 0 9 5 5 6 again the
phone number have this ready to go when we get
to the part where we invite you to call in 8
1 2 650 -9556. You can also tweet us. In fact,
one person has already. It's at HamTalk Live
on Twitter, and we'll be checking that throughout
the night. So send in your question. If you have
one now, if you have one in a little bit, give
us a call, and I'll be back with Bill, Mike,
and Jim right after this word from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. Hey, honey, have
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If a man says something in the woods and there
are no women there, is he still wrong? You're
listening to HamTalk Live with Neil Rapp. Thanks
to Tower Electronics for bringing the show to
you tonight. You can see Scott and Jill at a
ham fest near you. They'll be at Oak Creek, Wisconsin
July 6th. Berryville, Virginia August 4th. Huntington,
West Virginia on August 10th and in Huntsville
August 17th and 18th. But you can visit them
anytime at PL -259 .com. Well our guests this
evening we have a trio of of scouts here tonight.
And the first one is Bill Stearns. He is a self
-proclaimed nerd enough that he made his call
sign NE4RD. He was originally licensed in 1994
at the Melbourne Hamfest in Florida as KE4RGH.
He was an active member of the Civil Air Patrol
and a past president of the Amateur Radio Association
of Southwest Florida. While in Florida, he was
very active in contesting satellites and VHF.
Currently, Bill resides in Billings, Montana
with his wife and three children. He's a life
member of ARRL and the K2BSA amateur radio association.
He's active in statewide contesting with the
Big Sky Contestants Club and SkyWarn with Yellowstone
County Ares. He's a software and systems engineer,
podcaster, and a generally nerdy guy. You can
find him on the Linux in the Hamshack podcast,
where he's been a cohost since May of 2016, reporting
on all kinds of things, nerdy, and also on amateur
radio newsline, where he reports on radio scouting.
Mike Crownover AD5A has been a licensed ham since
1989 at the same time as his then 12 year old
son Michael KB5ILT. They both have extra class
licenses now and Mike's youngest son Jake was
also licensed when he was 12 and he's AB5EB and
then he has two grandsons Reid and Boogie KF5GYE
and KF5GYD who hold their general class tickets.
and Mike spends almost all of his time on CW.
He has an impressive contest station in Texas
and the member of many organizations including
CW Ops and the founder and president of the Island
Radio Expedition Foundation. And finally, no
stranger to the show is Jim Wilson, K5ND. He's
retired from the Boy Scouts of America headquarters,
where he spent 21 years in publishing and communications.
He is now a freelance writer and continues to
volunteer as the chairman of the National Radio
Scouting Committee, National Jamboree on the
Air organizer, and a member of the World Jamboree
on the Air and Jamboree on the Internet team.
He's president of the K2BSA amateur radio association,
which you can check out at k2bsa .net and over
172 ,000 scouts have earned the radio merit badge
and therefore exposed formally to amateur radio.
So we finally got all three people together on
Skype here tonight. So Bill, Mike, and Jim, welcome
to the show. Well, Neil, thank you very much
for inviting us. It's a delight to be here and
talk about one of our passions amateur radio
and scouting and and before we get in too far
if you if you for following the social media
and the QRZ and e -ham boats and everything We
have two topics tonight. We have we have the
world scout jamboree and At the end, we'll talk
about Walmart parking lots on the air. And if
you're trying to figure out what the Scouts have
to do with Walmart parking lots on the air, not
much. We have two separate topics tonight that
we need to squeeze in. So, so no, there's not
a connection there. So wanted to get that in,
but Jim, let's talk about the World Scout Jamboree.
This is your next big event coming up. And that
was our focus of tonight's. conversation. So
let's talk about the Jamboree itself being hosted
right here in the U .S. Well, exactly. It's the
24th World Scout Jamboree and it's an event that's
essentially owned by the World Organization of
the Scout Movement and every four years there's
a different host country. So that's pretty exciting
as it goes around the world. The last one was
in Japan. The time before that I believe it was
in Sweden. I think it was England before that.
And now it's being hosted by actually a North
American team. This is the first time a team
of nations have come together to host it. The
Boy Scouts of America, Scouts Canada, and Scouts
de Mexico. So it's those three organizations
that are hosting it. They're hosting it at the
Summit Bechtel Scout Reserve in West Virginia.
Now the good news there is that's the same place
we host the national Scout Jamboree. So we've
got all the infrastructure there and we're in
exactly the same location that the K -2 BSA station
was in. for 2013 and 2017 national Jamborees.
And back to the World Jamboree, we expect about
50 ,000 scouts from 160 countries. So it's going
to be absolutely extraordinary. all kinds of
program activities on the site for the scouts.
The dates, July 22nd to August 1st, and we'll
be doing setup and testing starting around the
17th of July to get the antennas up and all that
sort of stuff. And quickly, in the amateur radio
operation itself, rather than use K2BSA, which
is distinctly American, but of course we have
to use an American call sign here in the US,
we chose NA1WJ, and that stands for North America
First World Jamboree. So now, I'll mention for
those out there that are... pointing out that
the Jamboree has been held in North America a
few times. This is the first one hosted by a
North American team. But our purpose, introducing
science, technology, fun and magic of amateur
radio to scouts and to serve as the amateur radio
voice of the Jamboree. And a big part of that
is our demonstration station, and Mike is our
technical leader. So I'll let Mike tell us all
about our demonstration station. Yeah, thanks,
Bill. Well, for those who have never seen or
been to a National Scout Jamboree, this demonstration
station, the best way I could describe it is
a field day on steroids. We're going to have
10 operating positions. We'll operate sideband
CW FT8. We'll have a satellite station And some
really expert guys operating that so there'll
be there'll be contacts available For most every
mode now our purpose here a primary purpose is
to expose ham radio to scouts and so during the
daylight hours We'll be getting as many scouts
through our tent and in front of the stations
as we can to actually make contacts, to understand
what ham radio is about, and to be generally
exposed to it. The thing you can do to help us
here is to listen for us on the air and make
yourself available, especially during the day
for sideband contacts, to talk with some of these
scouts. As Bill said, 50 ,000 from 160 different
countries is going to be quite an interesting
project. Now we'll have also an international
staff. We, because it's an international world
jamboree, staffing requirements limit, you know,
members from North America, rightly so. And so
we will have an international staff and so you
may be able to chat with them on the air as well.
Now, the station is 10 operating positions. We
will have towers and beams and wires and every
type of antenna imaginable. We want to thank
ICOM for providing the radios. They'll be giving
us some 7300s to use. We'll also have some ICOM
9700s for VHF UHF use. They've sponsored our
repeaters on site. And so a big thank you to
ICOM for all they've done for us. Providing a
lot of the ancillary equipment, the coax, the
connectors, the switching, the headphones, all
of that kind of stuff. DX engineering and MFJ
have stepped up not only this year. They've also
in the past that national jamborees Sponsored
as well as has icon This year. We have a couple
of new sponsors when I say this year This is
a world jamboree, but this is kind of an ongoing
project for K to BSA The JK antennas has stepped
up to donate three three nice antennas to us
Actually, they gave them to us an Illuma tower
has loaned us one of their very nice portable
towers that we'll be able to mount the antennas
on. The setup will, as Jim hinted at, will be
around the 16th, 17th, 18th. We will try to set
up all the infrastructure, the antennas, the
towers, the cabling, the switching system, the
computers. You'll hear from Bill Stern shortly.
He's promised me he will network all these computers
and they'll operate flawlessly. So looking forward
to how smooth that will be. But we will be very,
very busy for those first few days to be ready
for the opening of the Jamboree, which is July
22nd. So it is basically a two -week field day
with Many many modes and many many visitors coming
through the tent and we hope to make a major
impact on ham radio on these on these young Scouters
so Hopefully you can if any of your Scouters
that are coming if you are coming to the jamboree,
please stop by and and say hi to us We have any
giveaways We do for Scouts We were Like a scout
and maybe you'll get a giveaway Okay, and then
just one last word about our schedule so and
I'm not I'm not on Eastern time in my mind So
not sure what time this is Zulu, but around we
will probably be primarily voice modes or digital
modes until around 5 p .m. Eastern time At that
time is when the scouts will go to do other things.
We'll continue to operate the station and we
may venture into some CW and other modes for
people who want to make a contact with the Jamboree.
So those operations will go well into the night
as long as we have people calling us. So probably
18 hours a day or so will be our operating schedule
assuming we can keep it manned the entire time
and that people are calling us. And that's where
you can help us out. But don't neglect to call
during the day when we have these young scouts
on the air and give them a great exposure to
ham radio. Yeah. And Jim, that's what we want
to talk about next is what can people out here
listening in cyberspace tonight, what can they
do to help support the event and be there to
help you have some people to talk to? Yeah, that's
the Sun is not our friend right now as you've
as we've all been discovering over the last couple
years actually and and in 2017 at our National
Jamboree was pretty challenging But so we need
guys on the air from West Virginia close by in
North America. There's a number of locations
that are set up to I know Gilwell Park, which
is the place where Scouting was founded in England.
They're going to be on the air. I think it's
GB 100. Something or other they have a 100th
anniversary happening there. They're gonna be
on the air We're hoping to work them a number
of others. There's a Jamborette in the Netherlands,
but we need guys here in the US Philmont There's
an operation there K5 PSR or K5 K the Philmont
Scout Ranch will be on the air all during the
Jamboree trying to work us But we we want people
on the air now Bill Stearns is going to tell
us a little bit about our social media and website
and how we can keep, how we plan to keep people
informed about what frequencies we're on and
that sort of stuff. So Bill, over to you. Yeah,
absolutely. Yeah, we'll be obviously keeping
all the pretty static and dynamic information
up on our website as current as possible. We'll
have, of course, all of our little social media
accounts plugged into mine and Jim's phone, at
least, so we can send out pictures and everything
else as the event goes on and as we see stuff.
We'll also be doing some Facebook Live events
for the balloon launches that we'll be doing.
We'll be doing, I believe, three balloon launches.
Is that correct, Jim? Right. Three of the Pico
balloon launches with APRS tracking. Yeah, so
we'll have that again. We'll do one early, probably
during setup to just try it out and also get
one in the air so we can start tracking it and
show scouts tracking it. And that will, of course,
you'll be able to track that on any of those
APRS tracking sites like APRSFI or whatever.
Are those going to be tagged with the NA1WJ call
sign or are those coming as K2BSA? They're all
NA1WJ call signs. Awesome. So yeah, all you have
to do is search for those. We'll probably short
link everything into the website and social media
accounts. So we have, of course, on Twitter,
we have at ktbsa underscore scouting. And we
also have at NA1WJ underscore scouting. In Twitter,
we have an Instagram account at NA1WJ. We also
have our Facebook page, which is the K2BSA Facebook
page. So that's where you'll find all of our
live events and anything getting updated. I might
work on some more trickery as we get all the
station connected and stuff like that to maybe
even have live updates of the log posting out.
We did run into some issues with that last year
going directly to, I believe, club log. We were
dropping some contacts, but we fixed all that
up afterwards. But we're gonna try to have all
that information out what frequencies we're currently
operating on What position we're operating on
which which way we're pointing the beam if we
get the beam going a certain direction So everybody
will be aware what's going on there? And all
those computers are going to be networked flawlessly
absolutely I'll also mention that on our website.
It's What is that? It's k2bsa .net slash jamboree
dash live. It shows our frequencies that we plan
to be on and we'll be updating that. But there's
a link there as well to questions that the ham
radio operators can ask the scouts. Sometimes
that can be a little bit challenging to get a
conversation going. And so we've published a
list of questions to try to help with that, to
prime the pump, if you will, to get. them engaged.
And let me also mention a couple of other things
here. We have during the Jamboree, one of our
programs is amateur radio direction finding or
fox hunting. We'll have both 80 meters and two
meters. They're going to be part of the geocaching
and orienteering program activities, but our
ham radio staff is handling that. for those guys.
We have also, Bill mentioned the Pico balloon
launches. And we'll have satellite contacts all
through the jamboree. It's Echo Mic 97 is the
grid. And then we have an International Space
Station contact planned as well. And we're working
on finalizing the date and the time for that.
But we're reasonably sure that the astronaut
we'll be talking to Drew Morgan, he is an assistant
scoutmaster in the Houston area. So we're very
excited about that. And that will be, of course,
Facebook Live video and all. And then just to
wrap it up, Mike touched on the staff members
that we have there. We have a total of, I think
it's 30. 33 staff members and we had a maximum
of 12 from the US. But the others are from Australia,
Brazil, Canada, Chile, Finland, Germany, Japan,
Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Nepal, Netherlands,
Norway, United Kingdom, Taiwan and Zimbabwe.
So and they're all. fully licensed ham radio
operators. Many of them have operated at previous
world jamborees. So it's going to be a blast.
Sounds like a really fun time. I look forward
to hearing all you guys on the air. And I think
I need Echo Mic 97, so we may have to work on
that. Perfect. Perfect. And you know, I also
mentioned I have a secret activity that we might
be able to undertake, depending how our setup
goes. But the Jamboree starts on the 22nd. The
20th and the 21st are the CQ Worldwide VHF Contest.
So we may be able to get on for that. So we'll
wait and see how we do. All right. Well, that
should give everybody a fairly good idea. And
also I'll put in a shameless plug here for Newsline
because I just finished recording Newsline. That
call sign is GB100GP. Because we have a story
about that on newsline this week about the 100th
anniversary of the Camp over in England. That's
where's the name of it. It's right here in front
of me Gilwell. It's yeah Gilwell Park. Yeah.
Mm -hmm. Very good. Thank you So so shameless
plug there. So, all right. Well, we're gonna
take a break We're going to come back and we're
gonna start answering some of the tweets that
have been coming in and take your calls at 812
-650 -9556. And we'll come back and talk more
with Bill, Mike, and Jim after this word from
the people who are providing all this equipment
for the scouts for this World Scout Jamboree
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radios. And don't forget to be ham active in
June. Participate in both the June VHF contest
as well as field day. Submit your logs and see
how you did in the pileup. The grass may be greener
on the other side, but at least we don't have
to mow it. You're listening to Ham Talk Live
with Neil Rapp. Thanks to I Come America for
bringing you the show again tonight and HamTalk
Live is on the air every Thursday night at 9
p .m. Eastern right here at HamTalkLive .com.
Be sure to check us out on Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram and if you have a question for
Bill, Mike, and Jim, give us a call. It's 812
-650 -9556 or you can tweet us at HamTalk Live
and if you're listening to us on WTWW or the
podcast edition, You won't be able to reach us
live since it's Thursday right now. I know we've
got a question about D -Star, so we're going
to get to that, but we have a couple of calls
on the line here. So I'm going to go ahead and
take the call here and see what that is, and
then we'll get back to that. So, all right. So
good evening. Welcome to HamTalk Live. Hello?
Or maybe not. Let's try this one. Hello, welcome
to HamTalk Live! The same number is ringing three
times. Let's try this one. Hello, welcome to
HamTalk Live! Okay, none of those. So we won't...
Try that again here in a minute. Okay, so it's
live radio at its best. So yeah, KG5GJT has tweeted
in, it's not Skyped in, tweeted in, and wants
to know, what about D -Star? You got to have
D -Star. So we were actually talking about that
over the break. So fill us in on some of those
other digital voice modes that are going to be
going on. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we have the
D -STAR, the WVA BSA Module B, Reflector 033
alpha will be basically where we're at. So we'll
be active on D -STAR. I believe ICON is sending
us a pair of the 5100s for operating D -STAR.
from the location. We'll also be on EchoLink
and that conference node we'll be reusing is
star -jambo -star or node number 832996. Hopefully
that should be running quite well. I just upgraded
that droplet on DigitalOcean and it seems to
be running pretty stable. So we'll probably connect
that in and also we'll be running a nightly net
from the the actual location there where we'll
probably be bridging both the 440 and two meter
repeaters there. And depending upon the traffic,
we might actually bridge in Jambo as well during
that net so people can contact us on the net
and kind of hear what's going on from all the
all the amateurs that will be on the event. We
get a lot of check ins from the other camps and
other teams working in the other area. So it's
always a was a fun net to kind of just say hi
and and everybody's like wanting to come over
and visit the station when they get a day off,
which, you know, we don't really get days off.
Yeah, you don't get much downtime. I'm sure.
All right. Let's try the call again. Maybe that
maybe it worked here. Let's try it. Welcome to
HamTalk Live. Hello. Nothing heard. OK, well,
I will. Hang this one up if it'll let me Try
it again, I don't know what's going on with this
technology You can come over here and fix all
this okay now We've got the calls cleared so
we can so we can try it again eight one two six
five zero nine five five six Is the phone number
to call and so we talked about all the the digital
voice stuff Let me go back over here to Twitter
because we did have the the D star question and
I believe we had oh we had one earlier tonight,
which Jim I think you already addressed on Twitter,
but the question was from Casey nine Z or Casey
seven ZIE rather uh... in las vegas and want
to know how he can get involved in his local
areas so uh... for those who didn't see your
response uh... fill them in on that you know
i'll provide the response that i gave and then
i want to turn it over to to bill and and mike
as well uh... really the uh... the best way to
get engaged with scouting is to Ideally, through
somebody that you know that's a Scoutmaster or
a Cubmaster, something like that. Actually, I
have a case in point here that I was setting
up my Rover mobile in the street in a gala. One
of my neighbors came by and said, went through
the usual explanations, and she said, you know,
my Cub Scout, Dan, might be really interested
in this. And I go, you betcha. Let me do a meeting
for you. really the best way. If you're gonna
contact a local council, they're at too high
a level to take advantage of it. Also, check
in with your club or your nearby clubs. They're
probably running a jam, or they may be running
a jamboree on the air event that you can get
engaged with. Those are two ways, but I know
Bill and Mike may be a bit closer to it, and
you guys have got some other ideas. Please chime
in here. Come back to the event, the World Scout
Jamboree, we have a mailing list that we've set
up over on groups .io slash G slash NA1WJ for
people that are interested in finding out how
they can get on the air with us. maybe talked
with us directly outside of, you know, the social
media platforms if you don't do that. The Groups
.io is a great, great location for that. We've
been talking to a lot of people that have joined
that list. I think we're over a hundred members
on the list right now that are, you know, telling
us where they're at, where they're located, what
station they have, and when their availability
is. So we can get together and get that information
out in yet another way. of providing communication
and feedback on that. How about you, Mike? Well,
yeah, I would just say to get involved in ham
radio and scouting, as Bill said, there's any
number of ways, or as Jim said. But one thing
I would say is if you call a couple of questions
to ask, and it depends on what their interests
would be, but who chairs the jamboree on the
air and the local council? and maybe the council
office can refer you to that individual, you
can then ask them, they'll be a ham, how you
can get involved. To also ask about becoming
a radio merit badge counselor, and they would
get you in touch with the people, the things
you need to do to qualify to get certified as
a merit badge counselor, and then kind of get
into that loop. And each council is a little
different in how they handle this stuff, so it's
hard to give you one prescribed method, but just
Just start talking to any scouts that you may
know. There are some advantages. I was assistant
scoutmaster. Both of my boys were licensed when
they were 12. When we went on campouts, I gave
them two meter hand -helds. That allowed me to
sit around the camp, drink coffee, and get periodic
reports. I didn't have to go check on them. Perfect.
Perfect. One more thing I could think about.
Yeah, well probably a couple things obviously
you can come visit us at the ktbsa .net website
we have lifetime memberships available there
where we Can send you out information you can
get involved we can talk all about the how you
want to get involved in radio scouting We have
the USA radio scouting net is every second Thursday
of every month at 9 p .m. Central on Echolink
and that's hosted over on a conference node of
star Jota -365 star or conference node 480809.
So you can check that out. Also you can subscribe
to our Jamboree on the Air email newsletter on
the K2BSA site as well and there's tons of information
that goes out in that quite often. What do you
say Jim? Like every couple months there's at
least some stuff going out? Yeah, about every
two, three months more as we get closer to the
event. Yeah, so it's not high volume newsletters.
You don't have to worry about being spammed and
stuff like that. But it does give you that constant
reminder of what's going on with radio scouting
directly from the K2BSA. And this lifetime membership
will set you back an entire 12 bucks. All right,
well. The same person called back again. We're
going to try it again. So let's see if it works.
I'm starting to think there's something wrong
with the phone system, but we'll try it. Welcome
to HamTalk Live. Just broken again. Of course.
It worked fine 30 minutes before the show. When
I called it, it worked fine. But now, of course
not. Okay, I guess we're giving up on the phone
lines tonight. We'll just do this work on the
tweets in the chat here One two six five zero
nine five five six is the number you're supposed
to call but I Don't know that that's working
tonight. We'll have to see oh, oh it was kg5
gjt So we got his question in so good got a got
a tweet from him. So Okay, so we know who that
was Okay, well Anything else that we need to
talk about here with World Scout Jamboree? We
might talk about Jamboree on the air a little
bit, but anything else we need to make sure we
hit with the World Scout Jamboree guys? I think
we beat it up pretty good. I'm pleased we were
able to get all that information out and delighted
that you're hosting us tonight. But yeah, we
can talk a little bit about Jambri on the air
as well. Did you want to mention about the QSL
cards and the availability and how that's actually
going to work this time? Yes. Bill kind of touched
on it before. We're going to use the full technology
sweep on the logs. We're using N1MM and ideally
we'll be synchronizing, uploading the logs. Ideally,
every day, if not in real time, but ideally every
day to club log, syncing that with log book of
the world. that will be posted on our website,
so you can do a search on the website for your
call sign, see if you've made it into the log,
and then of course Logbook of the World will
give you a confirmation. But we have a QSL manager,
Donald Sonnefeld, KD2FIL, and he will handle
direct requests for QSLs, and then Clubblog itself,
we've activated their online QSL request service,
primarily for people overseas because I think
we're we're charging two bucks and the two bucks
is for the postage to get it overseas so it's
it's not the best way to get a QSL card in the
US but you can you can use it a few people did
in 2017 but so I yeah that and QSL pretty nifty
too. You can see a picture of one on Neil's post
and in our Facebook page and the website as well.
Yeah, it's a very well done QSL card, so that'll
be a good one. Well, KG5GJT here also asks, will
there be a Radio Merit Badge class during the
World Scout Jamboree? No, there won't. This is
the World Jamboree. There are 160 different scout
organizations there. Not all of them have a radio
merit badge. In fact, some of them don't have
a merit badge program. So it's not an activity
that fits in a World Scout Jamboree, which is
unfortunate. We did it. We always do it for the
National Jamboree, but not for a World Jamboree.
Okay, now we want we got a couple other things
to talk about but real quickly Do you have a
little bit of a preview on Jota? Let's see Jambri
on the air third weekend in October and I'm not
looking at the dates right now 18th 19th and
20th. Okay good. Yeah, so that's Friday Saturday
and Sunday and local time. It's not a contest
so it doesn't start at 00 hours UTC or anything
like that. It's Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
And lots of, well, it's the largest scouting
event in the world. Now we just mentioned 50
,000 scouts at the World Scout Jamboree. That's
the next largest scouting event. Jambri on the
air is typically a million. I think last year
we got 1 .8 million. Our target for 2021 is 3
million. So it's a big event, it's fun to get
on the air and connect scouts to one another
and introduce the technology. And that's a great
way to get engaged with scouting as well. It's
typically setting up a station, or it's ideally
almost, setting up a station at a camperee. where
the scouts are already there. They've got lots
of activities. They'll stop by the station. Some
won't let go, and they'll catch on fire about
ham radio. Others will go, yeah, okay, whatever,
but you planted a seed. So that's Jambri on the
air, third weekend in October. Okay, so let's
come up. Oh, yeah, go ahead, Mark. Yeah, I just
had a comment about that. And Jim's right, most
of these are at Camp Rees, but it's also not
a bad project for a ham club. If they can get
in contact with the local scouting organization
to make a station available. We've done this
in the past and there are some requirements,
even in we blows that require participation in
an event like JOTA. Make your state, we always
talk in ham radio. How do we get youth involved?
How do we engage youth in ham radio? This is
the perfect project for a club working in conjunction
with scouting to make the station available,
sponsor the event, have it staffed, you know,
partner with your local council or your local
troop or local cup pack. and put something on
the air. It doesn't have to be all weekend. You
can do it on Saturday. You can do it on Sunday.
Both or one or part of a day. But it is an excellent
way to get involved and to get youth exposed
to ham radio. We're always asking about that.
This is a ready -made project. And very good
point, Mike. You remind me that we have a local
church here. Yeah, local church, it has a couple
of units, a troop and a pack, and there's a ham
club that sets up in the parking lot, and they
get a lot of scouts in the morning on Saturday,
they get a lot of scouts in the afternoon, and
it's a good turnout for them. You have to be
patient when setting up that, because people
are so busy these days, but it's a great way
to do it. in the Longhorn Council, I'm the guy
that's trying to organize the station for the
council office. And I'm reaching out to local
clubs and saying, hey, here it is. Got an opportunity
to set up a station and get the scouts out. So,
yep, good, good. And a lot of the districts and
councils, that's the last weekend of popcorn
sales. At least generally it's been the last
weekend of popcorn sales. A lot of times they
have sort of district little meetup stations
where they have like a fill up the sheet thing
going on and normally ice cream or something
like that for the scouts that fill their sheets
up and can come in and take a break selling that
last weekend of popcorn. So getting in contact
with your districts and stuff like that. that
are having those kind of events it's a great
time to kind of show up at the park throw up
a little portable station and uh you know why
people are there having some ice cream they can
take a look at what you're doing in amateur radio
sounds like some fun stuff and and jim i know
that one of the things you do is you like to
go out roving and and set up Portable and do
some satellite operation and and that brings
us to our other topic tonight Which we don't
have a whole lot of time for but we need to get
this in because it's just a lot of fun It's Walmart
parking lots on the air and it's coming up July
6th and 7th So give us your thoughts on Wimploda
and and I understand that that you've done dollar
general parking lot on the air Well, that's true.
And you noted that I like to do some rover operations
chiefly around these days in the VHF. In fact,
for the June contest, I was out in the panhandle
of Texas, where the land is flat and there's
clear horizons anywhere you look. Perfect location
for VHF roving and for satellites. But yes, I've
done some satellite roving as well, so a lot
of satellite operations. And my little thing
was in the town of Lone Oak, Texas, there's a
grid line. I think it's EchoMic 22 and EchoMic
23. And that line happens to go through a very
small parking lot of a Dollar General store.
So I found the right parking space, went in and
told the proprietor there that I was not completely
wacky. but I was going to be operating ham radio.
They didn't seem to have too much trouble with
it. So I have activated a parking lot, but not
a Walmart parking lot yet. So I've got that opportunity
to come up. But I want to point out something.
The first, as those who are active in satellites
know, Twitter is a... cauldron, if you will,
of activity there. That's where you learn what's
happening and all the chatter that goes on. And
I observed in all those connections this tiny
idea of, hey, somebody, maybe they even took
a photo of somebody activating a parking lot
and they said, why don't we do this? And they
picked a date and they picked the rules and they...
developed a wiki and it grew enormously. It was
a crowd source kind of a thing that happened
and incredible participation. Lots of fun activities,
awards, and all of that sort of stuff. I recommend
it if you enjoy satellite operating. This is
the event to connect with. Now it really did
just start from an idea, you know, and people
did what you did is hey There's a grid line that
runs right through this Walmart parking lot and
and so no we're not out to you know to promote
Walmart, but They're big open spaces, which are
great for satellite and and a lot of these grid
lines We're gonna run through those parking lots
and so that's kind of where it all got started
and everybody just started making up their own
rules and they stuck and so some of the rules
are kind of unusual. You know, one that comes
to mind, I think it's called the MacGyver. Yes,
the MacGyver Works at Walmart award, where you
go into the Walmart and you buy what you need
to build your antenna and you come out in the
parking lot and put it together and get on the
air with it. Absolutely incredible stuff. So
the second annual weekend of Wemploda is coming
up soon, July 6th at zero hundred Zulu. that's
friday night at eight eastern for uh... for the
non zulu time people and twenty three fifty nine
zulu on sunday july seventh the exchange is at
least your call sign and hopefully either or
maybe both the walmart store number which you
can look up on on the walmart side or on the
app or the four digit uh... grid square uh...
maybe both just kind of depends because on satellite
time is precious so do what you can there but
if you're operating for more than one store they
really encourage give the store number so that
way people know that you're at a different place
so you can work it again for new credit and jim
mentioned twitter the hashtag is wmplota Walmart
parking lots on the air. So make sure to check
that out. But, you know, you don't have to be
at a Walmart parking lot to be an associate.
You have to be at a Walmart parking lot. So you
can work Walmart parking lots on the air. But
if you want to be an associate, you got to go
to a Walmart parking lot. Now, Brett, let me
get his call sign. W Y seven B G. Yes. Says,
how about Trader Joe's parking lot on the air?
Well, Maybe we can come up with that one, too.
It's got to be a Walmart or a Sam's Club or the
neighborhood market or whatever. It's got to
be the same group in the U .S. Now, if you're
in a location that doesn't have one, for DX,
in fact, it mentions that anything equivalent
would work. Any big store with a big parking
lot would work. uh... but where there's walmart's
it it it's gotta stick to walmart and samson
and this and the sam's market and and that kind
of thing uh... so uh... let's see what else do
we need to talk about we talked about a lot of
that stuff already uh... but If you want to check
out all these bonuses and multipliers and stuff,
go over to wmplota .org. That's W -M -P -L -O
-T -A, WalmartParkingLotsOnTheAir .org for the
complete list. But this will just give you a
little bit of an idea of the fun. things that
people have created just and some of these are
created just so they'll get points and nobody
else uh that was kind of the fun thing of it
that you know they made them so specific there's
no way anybody else will get them but but the
person who wrote the rule will So there's a couple
of apocalyptic multipliers. The zombie multiplier
is if you go through AO7, which is the satellite
that came back to life after the battery shorted
out. So there's that one. And then if you go
through a packet sat, there's the robot overlords
multiplier. But zombie chasers need to always
roll back the power Because if it's a07 you'll
you'll knock it off the air so if you overload
the receiver So make sure you roll back the power
and if the zombies hear you They'll eat you and
they'll kill you for the fun of everyone says
that's what it says here in the rules anyway
So there's an early bird the first contact that's
made between two operators in the activation
window. Jim talked about the MacGyver Award if
you make your antenna out of stuff that you got.
The Sam Walton Award goes to the most stores
activated. You get bonuses for being near a grid
line, on a grid line. Within three kilometers
of gridline back to school is if you have a student
kindergarten through college that participates
Social media post is called the big talker There's
the spelling bee if you can get call sign suffixes
that spell out Walmart If you get a W and A and
L M A R T then you get 25 bonus points and this
is always around the birthday of Walmart. So
if you have a birthday cake or other baked confection
in celebration of the birthday of Walmart and
post that on social media, you get a bonus. You
get a bonus for picking up trash in the parking
lot. You get a bonus for replacing a dislocated
shopping cart to try to clean up. And then here's
the ones that I love. The ones that are kind
of made that are really specific like The people
of Walmart you get a selfie from the parking
lot All Roy you have to It's the activator with
the most Twitter posts of their dog From an activated
parking lot and then there's all Roy with Roy
So you get a picture of your dog at the parking
lot, but the operator's name has to be Roy So
it's all Roy with Roy Special Kitty is the same
as Olroy but with your cat. Buy one, get one
free Tabor Squared. So if you talk to Chris Tabor,
K7TAB, and Doug Tabor in 9UA on the same pass,
you get that. And let me end with this one. This
is the important one. The great value bonus is
a QSO while eating chicken obtained from the
deli. Because that Saturday is National Fried
Chicken Day. It's not a coincidence. It's National
Fried Chicken Day. So if you get the chicken
bonus, it's even National Fried Chicken Day.
So that's even better. So guys, thoughts here
on Wimploda before we wrap this up? I could rip
myself out. My first name is Roy. If someone
needs points. Bill. Sounds good to me. I'm going
to say surely you have a comment. No, no, that's
that's a great that's such a great event I like
all these on the air events from the various
various things We have the one that appears pretty
interesting is the the mines on the air one I
always want to try to do that because we have
so many old mines Yeah, yeah, there's mines on
the air. There's Craters on the air. They were
gonna start that one up and all kinds of stuff.
So so this one's coming up July Where'd it go?
July 6th and 7th. And it is on satellite, so
that's why it's in the parking lot, so you get
a clear horizon, hopefully. That's Walmart parking
lots on the air, the second annual one. It's
actually the third one, but the second annual,
because we did an extra one there last year.
Alright guys. Well, thanks so much for coming
on the show and and talking about the World Scout
Jamboree and and also a little bit about Wimploda
tonight and Best of luck to some good weather
and good propagation and all of your hardware
networking actually working That last one, that's
going to be tough. Neil, thank you very much
for hosting us, for helping get the word out
about it. We look forward to working you during
the Jamboree, giving you Echo Mic 97 on a satellite.
Just thanks very much. You're very welcome. Anything
else guys? No, I echo my thanks as well. It's
appreciated. Let us get the word out Yeah, thanks
a lot and make sure you visit us at ktubsa .net
for more information Yep, that's the place to
go. And yeah, I do look forward to to working
you guys while you're out there at the Jamboree.
Well, that is a wrap for this week's edition
of HamTalk Live. Thanks to my guests, Bill Stearns
in E4RD, Mike Crownover, AD5A, and Jim Wilson,
K5ND, and everybody out there in cyberspace for
listening and typing in and also... hear you
back two weeks from tonight. I'm gonna take next
week off. It's actually the 4th of July, so there
won't be a program next week. But two weeks from
tonight, I will actually be at the Teachers Institute
at ARRL headquarters out in Newington. And so
we're gonna come live from Newington next. time.
In two weeks, Matt Severin, N8MS, and others
will be on the show to talk about the ARL Teachers
Institute, and we'll be out in Connecticut, probably
the hotel or something, but we'll be out there.
Enjoy the 4th of July. Enjoy your Independence
Day safely and then I'll talk to you from Newington
here in a couple of weeks and hopefully some
of you on Walmart parking lots on the air on
the drive out there. So for a list of all of
our upcoming guests visit HamTalkLive .com and
if you like HamTalk Live please leave us a review.
on iTunes or wherever you listen, that helps
others find us faster. So for now, this is Neal
Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7375, and may the good DX
be yours.