By Daniel Fisher, AI4GK South Brevard County, Florida PIO, ARRL
A small group of Amateur Radio
operators who also are involved in Boy Scouts of America (BSA) recently
established a calling plan for Boy Scout camps.
In late April, Nathaniel Frissell, W2NAF, posed a challenge, of sorts, to members of the Scout Radio Yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ScoutRadio,
to come up with a summer camp net so that Scouts can talk to one
another. Frissell said, "Scout camp radio stations are often frustrated
when they have limited times to get on the air and can‚t find anyone to
talk with.".
What happened was astounding. After a
very few weeks of discussion led by Frank Krizan, KR1ZAN, President of
the K2BSA Amateur Radio Association, the Scout Radio members came up
with an HF calling plan, dubbed Scout Camp Calling Protocol, or SCCP.
According to Krizan, SCCP is not a net, but rather, a plan for
ham-Scouts and Scouters throughout the United States, Canada and the
world to make contact with other Scouts and Scouters for Radio Merit
Badge requirements, Amateur Radio demonstrations, emergency
preparedness, passing NTS traffic, or any other purpose, including
ragchewing. "The intent is to encourage camps and folks at home to get
on the air at prescribed times and provide radio contacts for scouts at
camp for many of whom this will be their first amateur radio contact,"
said Krizan. The plan is broad-based, and with the many camps and time
zones, the likelihood of a Scout camp contacting another specific camp
is slim. Ham-Scouters and other interested hams not at camp are encouraged to support Scouts and Scouters who are attending camp by providing contacts for them.
The SCCP plan's strength is its simplicity.
1. Scout
camps, and any interested ham-Scouters not at camp, are encouraged to
get on the air at 1300, 1900, and 2100 hours local time. 2. Calling times
extend from 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after the hour. The
recognized call will be "CQ SCOUT CAMPS". 3. Use the traditional Scout calling frequencies, +/- 10 KHz, avoiding any nets. http://www.arrl.org/FandES/ead/jota.html#frequencies has additional information.
4. There are
two frequency bands for each time. Participating stations will use the
higher band during the 5 minutes before the hour and the lower band
during the 5 minutes after the hour to maximize propagation conditions. 5. The bands to use are: 1). Daytime (1300 and 1900 hours): 20m/40m. 2). Nighttime (2100 hours): 40m/80m. 6. Scout camps,
Scouts and Scouters from the United States, Canada, and the rest of the
world are encouraged to monitor according to the plan from 1700Z to
2000Z and from 2300Z to 0400Z to support Scout camps with traffic
handling and talking with Scouts.
*7.270 might be unusable in the evening and night hours due to Asian broadcast stations. Tune up or down to find an opening.
**Avoid 14.300, since the Maritime Mobile Service Net and the Intercontinental Traffic Net use this frequency.
***Although 14.070 is listed as the Scout CW calling frequency, do not
use it because it is the international PSK-31 frequency. Suggested
frequency is 14.065. Please refer to the following link for more
details.http://homepage.mac.com/k2frd/JOTA.htm
Bob Bruninga, WB4APR,
developer of Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) and another
avid ham-Scouter, has added the following suggestions for Scout camps
and ham-Scouters equipped with APRS:
1. If your
camp has APRS, send a message to SCOUTS at the beginning and end of all
operating periods. An APRS message to SCOUTS will be retransmitted
everywhere in the USA and the world where SCOUTS has been added to the
automatic "pass-to-RF" at the local IGate. 2. Contact the
local IGate that serves your camp area and ask the SYSOP to include
"SCOUTS" in its automatic "pass-to-RF" list. This way, you can receive,
in real time, any other SCOUTS messages in the world alerting you of
other stations on the air. 3. Make sure that
your station is using the APRS symbol for Scouts. That way, any other
station in the world can check the APRS FINDU Web page and see live
which other SCOUT stations are on the air. http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/symbol.cgi?icon=/,&limit=2000
The Scout Camp Calling Protocol was
originally published in the OCARG EAGLE, an e-Zine dedicated to
RadioScouting. The editor is Fred Stevens, K2FRD. Current
and archived copies of the EAGLE are available at http://homepage.mac.com/k2frd/ocarg.htm
Scouts and scouters interested in RadioScouting are encouraged to
subscribe to the OCARG EAGLE, free of charge. Our thanks to Fred
and the EAGLE for permission to use parts of his article in this report.
Nathaniel Frissell, W2NAF, a very
active ham-Scouter from Bloomfield, New Jersey, runs the technology
program and Amateur Radio activities at Forestburg Scout Reservation
(W2FSR) in Forestburgh, NY. The program includes a Technician license
class and VE sessions each week during the camp. During the summer of
2005, Nathaniel also served on the K2BSA staff at the National Boy
Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill, VA.
Daniel Fisher, AI4GK is a ham-Scouter
and a public information officer for the American Radio Relay League
(ARRL) in Palm Bay, Florida. He has assisted in operating JOTA stations
in South Brevard County, Florida for several years and regularly
operates HF and VHF stations at Boy Scout camps. Dan previously has
contributed Scouting stories to the ARRL Web site. He can be contacted
at ai4gk at arrl.net.
