YB Land DX Club DX-ing Is Our Life
Scouting magazine reports on how two assistant scoutmasters are training scouts to become radio amateurs
The magazine article says:
Assistant Scoutmaster Scott de Masi KC5NKW‘s subdivision was underwater — as were many parts of Kingwood, Texas, in the wake of the devastating Category 4 Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
With roads flooded, bridges washed away, cellphone towers and power out, it was soon realized that Troop 839’s emergency preparedness plan wasn’t designed for a storm of this magnitude.
It was frustrating, deMasi says, to discover you couldn’t reliably reach all of the troop’s 100 Scouts and their families to check if they were OK or organize relief efforts as a unit.
Something had to be done.
Enter ham radio
After the waters receded, deMasi and Assistant Scoutmaster David Godell KG5VLY got to work coming up with a plan so the troop wasn’t left incommunicado. With 15 years experience as an amateur (ham) radio operator, deMasi suggested getting Scouts and parents trained to use ham radios.
“It’s a lifesaving skill, and it helps us to Be Prepared,” Godell says.
An initial interest meeting was planned. Scouts were given links to study materials and offered a drive to test sites where they could become licensed radio operators. However, participation was low.
So, deMasi and Godell worked with a local radio club, the Texas Emergency Amateur Communicators, to organize a one-day class that ended with the necessary licensing exam. During the day of learning, the Scouts would also fulfill almost all of the requirements for the Radio merit badge.
In addition, the assistant Scoutmasters bought handheld radios, programmed to frequencies the troop would use, so after the class, the Scouts would receive the equipment needed to continue using their new skill.
“Once you get that spark of interest, it grows from there,” deMasi says.
Read the full article at
https://blog.scouting
magazine.org/2019/12/24/assistant-scoutmasters-help-scouts-get-trained-to-be-amateur-radio-operators/
