[HCRA] Greetings from K2BSA/4 - National BSA Jamboree

[kx1x at arrl.net]

Greetings from Fort A. P. Hill, Virginia,  home of the 2005 National Boy Scout Jamboree.  Mike, KB1FWN, and I arrived here on Friday afternoon at about 3 o'clock...  97 degrees and humid.  Its been pretty much the same every day, but the nights have been cool  (65ish)   enough for good sleeping.

Yesterday, power was turned on at the K2BSA demo station, and the bucket trucks came over to put the 5 mono-bander beams and repeater vertical up on top of the telephone poles planted in each of the four corners around the station.  (The 5L 20m monobander is even bigger than ours!!!)   We have an Icom IC74PRO on 20m, a TenTec Jupiter on 40m, a TenTec Omni on 15, and a Yeasu FT840 on sattelite and 75/80m.

There are 53 K2BSA staffers here from all over the country (and one from Australia).

Jamboree participants start arriving today  (Sunday) and tommorrow.  In the next two days, "the hill" will grow from the few thousand staffers that are here now, to over 40,000 scouts and scouters at this event.

I think the 40m rig was ready to go for all of about 30 seconds before FWN was at the microphone calling CQ, K2BSA/4.

Later last night, around 10ish, I worked Dave, AA1YW, who was at his VT QTH running QRP on 20m.  There weren't many good signals coming from the NE, but we were able to QSO for a few minutes with no problem before the QSB put an end to that.  The last time I was here at the Jamboree, in 2001, I worked Dave on 40m  (he was KB1FRH then).

K2BSA/4 will be in full operation starting tomorrow.  If you have time, please give a listen for us calling at or around 14.290 and 7.270.  During the day, we'll most likely be calling out for people to talk to scouts in the shack for demos.  At night, staffers are allowed to call out just to work casual contacts and skeds.
   Mike and I are looking forward to working Biff and Dave up at the Scout camp on Thursday 0000z (2000 EDT), most likely on 40m at or around 7.270.  We'll also be on every other night, most likely, working Q's (pointing NE).
   The K2BSA staff is already receiving NTS traffic at various times during the day.  I'll bet Mike would get a kick out of some traffic destined for his callsign from HCRA members:

Mike DeChristopher, ARS KB1FWN
K2BSA Staff
2005 National Scout Jamboree
Bowling Green, VA 22428


For more information on the K2BSA operation at the 2005 Jambo see:

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/07/21/2/?nc=1


'73 for now,
de Kx1x
JPise