JOTA - Jamboree On The Air

The Bundaberg Amateur Radio club has a long association with JOTA, Jamboree On The Air, and some of our members were Youth Leaders within Scouts in earlier years.

Scouting in Bundaberg is fortunate to have a property called Wyper Park, a large parkland of natural bush reasonably close to town which offers a RF quiet location for HF communications, and excellent facilities for the energetic Scouts and 'older' the relaxed Amateurs.

Having this dedicated adventure land means the Jamboree at Bundaberg has become a big event held every October, and is devoted to all manner of scouting activities.

Each year BARC members work with the Scout coordinators and set up antennas and a couple of Radios operating on different frequencies, then we settle in to find other scouting groups all over Australia who are doing the same thing.

Wyper Park is a favourite with local Scouts, with plenty of space the patrols can spread out, and groups come from the surrounding towns for the weekend.
The youngsters look forward to the outdoor scouting activities where they learn bushcraft and how to erect tents, build fires, cook meals etc... it's all part of their growth from Cubs and Joeys into Scouts.

With the river flowing by, they've even had kayak and canoe adventures for the older boys and girls.

Jamboree was intended for scouts to reach out to others and originally that was via Radio now it's been expanded to JOTI [Jamboree Of The Internet] and computers are set up for the weekend allowing traffic and interest to grow.


As the members camp the night they're able to work the radio airwaves into the night and when conditions are right it's not uncommon for our groups to be chatting to Scouts in other parts of the world, even those camping in the famous Sherwood Forest in the UK.