Download the Logo

This year, WOSM has organised a Logo Contest again to choose the official logo of the JOTA-JOTI 2012. It has been incredibly popular with over 100 designs submitted in only one month. We were very impressed with the wonderful diversity, quality and professionalism of the designs that were submitted.

Click the picture to download the logo in high resolution.

"How big is your world?" Well, here's how to find out:

To visualize how big the amateur-radio world is, an on-line logging tool offers help. The HRD amateur-radiosoftware suite offers many interesting features for the Scouts to play with. It can be downloaded here.

On-line-, but also off-line logging is available (you can upload logs later if no internet connection is available at your JOTA station). The on-line tool gives you the possibility to display your contacts on an electronic plot map.This shows how far your contacts have reached and, indeed, how big your radio world is. The logbook also gives you the distance and further details of each contact that you enter. The Scouts that serve as your station's "logbook operator" will be able to directly present the overview. Have a look at the on-line tool here.

If you add the web link of your logbook to your JOTA weekend report, we can include it in the world-wide overview that will be compiled after the event.

Listen in to the world: on several places around the globe, amateur-radio receivers are connected to the internet. With your computer, you can simply connect to them and listen. Find out which stations you can here at the place where the receiver is located. Or, even more exciting, listen if you can hear the radio signal of your own Scout station !

An idea for your JOTA preparation? Ask your Scout to listen with their computer via a nearby receiver. Ask your radio amateur to transmit a message for them with his home station. See which Scout is first to get the message.

One of the biggest stations that you van listen with is the radio telescope of Dwingelo in the Netherlands. It even allows you to listen to amateur radio signals bounced of the moon. Really? Yes, this antenna is big enough for that. So you see, your (radio) world is bigger than may you think....

A good starting point to listen to amateur radio signals with your computer: click here.

Want to find more radio's or try the big telescope? Have a look here.

Have fun !

Each Scout can have its own radio station........ and have some JOTA practice before the weekend. To train radio amateurs, there is a fully on-line amateur "radio" environment, running on a server connected to the internet. Together with software on your computer, you can have your own "radio". It behaves exactly as a short-wave amateur-radio transceiver: you can make live contacts with other users anywhere in the world, experience the same types of radio garble and interference, play with different transmission modes and many more. Without the need for an amateur radio license (since you are not transmitting on airwaves). An excellent practice for Scouts to get acquainted with amateur radio and prepare themselves for JOTA. The software, called Hansphere, can be used free of charge for a trial period. Just enough to be prepared for your JOTA experience...! You an find detailed info and download the software here.

QRZ?.....QR-what.....? Radio-Amateurs often use the Q-code, a set of abbreviations to make radio contacts shorter and more clear. Sometimes this sounds like a sort of secret language. Recently, a new version of the Q-code popped up; a digitalized form called QR code. So if you see one a a product or object around you, think of the amateur-radio Q-code.
For the 55th JOTA we have developed a Q-code game with these digital QR codes. You will need a smartphone or computer to read the codes, find different places on earth, look up country prefixes, think hard to recognize places and many more. A fun activity with your Scout to discover how big the world really is.

Download the game instructions here.

Wondering about he solution of the game? Find it here form 21 Oct, 14:00GMT onwards. Until then...... QRZ?

Additional JOTA-JOTI programme suggestions

A few examples of the many programme suggestions available in the JOTA fact sheets (on the radio-scouting web or in printed form):

• The continuing story.... Make up a short imaginative story of ten lines. Read it to the station with whom you are in contact. Ask them to add the next part to this story and pass it on to the next scout station that they will contact. If you receive such a story by radio from another scout group, write it down in your station report afterwards. This activity is also very well suited for RTTY (telex) and packet-radio contacts.
• The global weather situation. Take a large wall map of the whole world. Ask the Scouts who you speak to, to give you the local weather report. Indicate this on the map for the area where they are located. A weather report in a local newspaper will show you how to do this on a map. At the end of the weekend you have the global weather view.
• Determine the distance of each radio contact that you make and add them all up. Can you reach 100.000 km in one JOTA weekend ?
• Make a simple drawing. Give instructions by radio to Scouts how to draw the same picture, line by line, without telling them what the picture is. Can they reconstruct your drawing and tell you what it is ?
• Each scout patrol gets 20 metres of ordinary electrical wire. Can they construct a "super antenna", to their imagination, with which the radio operator can make a contact ?
• Find out what the local names are for "Scouts" and "Guides" in at least ten different countries. Make a list.
• Learn to sing the first lines of a foreign song. Find some Scouts on the radio from the country where the song comes from. Sing their song and see if they can join you in it.

• Play JAMPUZ, a JOTA bingo game:
  • Get your own JID number by registering your Scout group in the JOTA-JOTI database at www.jotajoti.org. Do this several days before the event.
  • Note the JID number that you receive at registration and donwload the bingo form.
  • download and print your bingo card here.
  • Ask each contacted station for its JID number.
  • If this number corresponds to a number on your Bingo card, cross it off. Have you completed your card? Bingo !

Furthermore, the on-line radio-scouting library presents you amongst others:

• Idea book for antennas pulled into the air by kites

• Several exciting Foxhunting recipes

• Radio Puzzle games from different countries

• Morse code games
• Idea set for playing with the world’s time differences

Participation Cards

This year’s participation cards have been mailed separately to the National Scout Organizations in the Scout Pack of June 2012. The intend is that each participating station receives its card, as a confirmation of its participation and a souvenir of the event.

National JOTA Organizers can download a high resolution file suitable for printing, with both front- and back side of the participation card, in the NJO section of this web side.

National JOTA Stories

With your help, the World Scout Bureau can compile a world-wide overview of the weekend and make it available to all participants. Of course, the information has to come from the participating Scout groups in your country. So you may to prepare for that and send a short story of your activities to your National JOTA Organizer after the event.

Note that an increasing number of participating Scout groups are using the on-line web log to submit stories and reports of their JOTA adventures. The link to the web log will be available here as soon as the weblog is opened.

Photographs showing Scouts in action at the microphone or keyboard and of other activities like electronic kit building, foxhunting, semaphore, map plotting and the like are most welcome. Of course, we do not need all your photographs, a selected set of e.g. the 5 best ones is greatly appreciated. So are clippings of local newspapers carrying the story of JOTA - JOTI in your local community.

We look forward to receive your input before the publishing deadline of:

15 December 2012.