Thank You DX, From a JOTA Coach

For the past three years, Newport County Radio Club, has hosted the Boy Scout Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) in Portsmouth RI.  It’s always a good time for both the young scouts, who earn a Radio Merit Badge (16 of them did so this year), as well as for the older hams who wonder at the boundless energy of youth.

This year we were very fortunate to have a nice opening into Europe all day on 12-meters, and openings on 15 and 10 meters as well.  Each scout has to spend at least 10 minutes working other stations, and those QSOs were often with DX thanks to the openings.  To a one, every DX station, upon hearing the young voice, or the words “Boy Scout” stopped their pileups and slowed down to introduce a future ham to the hobby.

My favorite example this year came from a station in Guantanamo Bay Cuba.  They had been working a crazy pile-up all day long, and all of their contacts were “59 Guantanamo Bay, 73 QRZ”.  A young scout at the microphone, barely above a whisper, gave our call “Whisky One Sierra Yankee Echo”.  The KG4 didn’t get full copy, and in the interest of speeding things up a bit, I gave the call a second time and asked if he would mind saying hello to a young scout on the air.  Boy did that catch his attention.  He announced on frequency that all stations were to stand-by, then asked us to wait a moment.  A few seconds later he was back on the air and introduced us to an Eagle Scout, and described his own scouting journey.  A second scout was introduced who was going to take his General Exam in Guantanamo later that day.  Essentially, this DX station, who had been working at a rate of 10 Qs a minute for hours, took the time to make our scout feel special.

Again, I can’t emphasize enough that to a single one, every one of the DX stations we spoke with went out of their way to be kind an welcoming.

I’ve been told that I spend too much time on ham radio, that’s its only a hobby, and there may be some truth to that, but having a day like I did today, really really makes me grateful.  Thank you DX for making this a very special Saturday!

 

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