In our troop several years ago, some ASMs took a Council Wilderness First
Aid class, where a guest speaker talked about Ham Radio as an emergency
communication tool (i.e. emergency preparedness). Since here in New Mexico
we do a lot of Wilderness camping, but nearly the whole state can access a
statewide repeater network, it made sense to get some licenses in the troop
and a couple of ASMs did so. The utility of the Ham radios (2-m
handy-talkies) expanded into safe-calls home (via telephone auto-patches),
automobile convoy communication, ETA announcements for scout pickups after
campouts, keeping track of fishing parties and day hike groups on campouts,
etc. Ham radios (especially via repeaters) have substantially longer range
than the Family-service radios. (It was kind of cool to keep in touch with
our Philmont crew this summer and pass along trek status and stories to
parents.) Consequently, today about a dozen of our leaders and several of
their spouses have licenses and radios. A number of the Scouts themselves
have picked up on this to where several of them have licenses, too, and more
are pursuing one. We are now encouraging this (since about a year ago) with
a special patch awarded to Ham licensees designating them as Troop Radio
Operators. Their Ham Radios are the one piece of electronic gear that we
allow the scouts to bring on campouts. Some of the boys are even now
building their own antennas to enhance their radio's performance.

I believe the degree of our troop's involvement in Ham Radio is somewhat
unique in our Council, at least. But I believe it is a real success story.
Ham Radio and Scouting are a natural blend...

Armin

--
Armin Doerry, KD5ONO
Troop 409, Albuquerque, NM

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"Phil Schuman" wrote in message
. com...
Wonder if there are any other Hams that have managed to take their rigs on
a
Boy Scout campout and got the Scouts interested in Ham Radio, or even
Morse
Code ? We have two Hams in our Troop, and we have thought about doing the
JOTA in October, along with dragging a rig to our indoor/cabin camping
weekends, and something during good weather. Also, what would be a good
rig
to drag out to these camping events....