Volume 52 Issue 10 - October 2014 : Heritage
This month in History (1965 ) ..O
Author : Kutlwano
For the first time since the Jamboree-of-the Air began in 1958, Bechuanaland Boy Scouts took part on October 16-17 in this world-wide amateur radio hook–up.
“JOTA”, as the annual Jamboree-of-the-Air has become familiarly known, is a modern way of emphasising to Boy Scouts the truth of the World-wide Brotherhood of Scouts.
There are now more than 10, 000, 000 Scouts in over eighty countries, and JOTA gives them an opportunity of speaking with each other.
Our Scouts made contact over the radio with 54 stations in 17 countries.
Among the stations contacted were America, Antarctica, the Argentine and Brazil. And an interesting contact was made with France through a “ham” in Antarctica.
This year a special Jamboree-of-the-Air station, ZS9-JAM, was established under the control of Colin Ewels and Ian Kennedy in the Information Department Block.
It operated during the daylight hours over the two days and many of the stations they contacted were also taking part in JOTA 1965.
A spokesperson of the Boy Scouts Association told KUTLWANO: “We were privileged to have a special recording by the Prime Minister, with which we opened our transmissions each day.
“For various reasons it was not possible to operate any other stations in Bechuanaland. However, next year we hope to be able to do so, and to treble the number of contacts.” ENDS