On Thursday July 25th, seven IslandHF member sat down to a very pleasant luncheon at the Crow and Gate Pub in Nanaimo. The weather was benign and fortunately there was little forest fire smoke floating around. It’s an easy drive to up highway 1 to Nanaimo. We’ll make certain it happens again.
The food was very good, the drinks were excellent, and the conversation was delightful.
The Pacific Jamboree, which is held every 4 years, was located at Camp Barnard, the 250 acre Scout Camp which includes Young Lake in Sooke. This was the third Jamboree in a row held at Camp Barnard. Not certain yet where the next one will be as it was not announced.
I’m not exactly sure of the exact number of attendees, but it was at least 3100 plus with Scouts coming from England, Australia, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, USA, Switzerland, every province in Canada except Quebec, and likely a few more.
Activities included canoeing, kayaking, mountain biking, log rolling, overnight hiking, robotics, rifle shooting, rock climbing, bus trips into Sooke and Victoria, the ever popular badge trading and of course Ham Radio.
We had 6 full time Ham certified Scouters and two part time volunteers helping us. They came from as far away as Alberta, Ontario and Newfoundland. One of the volunteers was Andy Woodsworth VE7PT. He was a scout and has participated in many scouting activities at Camp Barnard
Over 600 Scouts attended our Ham Station which was an increase from previous years. They had to complete 10 Ham related activities to earn the badge. These included: 1) talking on a Ham Radio, (either HF or UHF / VHF), 2) learning and reciting the phonetic alphabet, 3) going on a Fox Hunt, 4) reciting several of the Morse Code letters, 5) making a Morse Code beaded bracelet, 6) deciphering a daily mystery Morse Code message, 7) using Morse Code practice keys to send and receive messages, 8) completing a Ham Radio word search, 9) sitting in on a 15 minute talk about how one can become a Ham Radio operator and 10) looking up an available call sign.
Six IslandHF members entered their Canada Day Contest scores into the 3830 Scores database. The band conditions weren’t great but it’s always good fun contacting other Canadian radio amateurs across this great country.
