Subj : Amateur Radio Newsline (B) To : All From : Daryl Stout Date : Fri Jun 08 2018 09:05 am THOUSANDS FLOCK TO HAM RADIO FRIEDRICHSHAFEN PAUL/ANCHOR: With Hamvention a memory, all eyes and ears turned recently to the largest hamfest in Europe. Ed Durrant, DD5LP, was there - here's his report. ED'S REPORT: As most will know, Ham Radio Friedrichshafen is the largest Hamfest in Europe. This years theme was radio scouting (audio clip) of course, with lots of fun, that was the combined scout troops from several European countries, who were attending Ham Radio Friedrichshafen this year. The theme extended into other youth orientated events including the hand-over of Youngsters on-the-air from the UK Organisers to the South African organisers. Attendance at the event was probably about 10% reduced due to the unfortunate coincidence that the date clashed with the IARU CW field day. There were several new dealers with new products, with Magnetic loop antennas, practical for portable use to enormous, high power home station ones. One young Spanish company, Komunica, are designing and building HF and VHF mobile antennas in Europe, with new antennas due out in September. It's good to see not everything is being produced in the far east. SDR radios were very much in presence, with several different companies displaying new or extended models. Of course the "big 5" were there, and this was a chance to see the new Kenwood TS-890S, and talk with its designer. As well as get a look at the Yaesu FTDX101D, FT-818ND, and the software update to the FT-2D Fusion handy to make it into a hot-spot. In general the slightly reduced numbers in the very large halls made it easier to get around. Only in the flea market was it as busy as ever. The addition of the Maker Faire, with their Cosplay dressed people walking around added some flair and fun. Despite dire weather predictions, not one drop of rain fell over the three days of the event. rather it was sunny, and in the high twenties Centigrade the whole time. So if you've never been to Ham Radio in Friedrichshafen, why not plan a visit for next year, when it moves back to its usual weekend, which is June 21st to the 23rd 2019. That's Friedrichshafen for another year, now it's time to get ready for the WRTC in 6 weeks time. How did that go? "Dib di Dib Dib Dah Dah Di Dah"? For AR Newsline, this has been Ed Durrant, DD5LP. ** RADIO SCOUTING GOES TO CAMP PAUL/ANCHOR: Here in the United States, radio scouts are getting busy with summer camp. Here's Bill Stearns, NE3RD. BILL'S REPORT: This week in Radio Scouting, summer camp season has started, and scouts are breaking codes, and sending CW in Oregon. William Coverdell, WD0BC, is activating K2BSA/0 at Camp Geiger in Saint Joseph, MO, from June 10th to July 21st. The camp will be offering radio merit badge classes throughout the six week period. Scouts will be getting on the air with a generous station that is completely scout owned through 100% donations. Ed Evans, WV8ED, is activating K2BSA/8 at Camp Arrowhead in Ona, WV, from June 17th to the 23rd. Ed will have a ham radio demonstration station located in the STEM area of the camp for the week. Richard Zarczynski, AC8FJ, is also activating K2BSA/8 at D-Bar-A Scout Ranch in Metamora, MI, from June 24th to the 29th. This event is the very successful Trail to Eagle program designed for the older Scout, which gives them the opportunity to work on the merit badges they need to complete their Eagle Scout rank requirements in a timely manner. Michael Boensch/W8MKB and Richard will again be offering the radio merit badge course, and maintaining the special event station, making others on the airwaves aware of, and promoting the long history of the Trail To Eagle program over the various amateur radio bands. We have many other activations at other scout camps over on our Scout Camps on the Air page at scota.us. If you want to help out a local scout camp, with donations of gear or your time, and don't know who to contact, please contact us through our website. Finally, I received a report from Russ Mickiewicz, N7QR, about scouts out in Oregon that were having some fun with another popular merit badge: Signs, Signals, and Code. A new generation of code-breakers and communications experts was launched at Oregon's Sunset Trail District Camporee in May, 2018. About 100 scouts learned the crafts that had once been vital for communications and survival: semaphore (flag) signals, Morse Code, and code ciphers. Scouts were broken up into teams after training. One team would be sending a coded message in semaphore, while the other team would decode the message, and then send their response back with Morse Code using a flashlight. The semaphore team would record the message, and confirm the correct decode by sending an R in semaphore back to the other team. For the rest of the story and more information on radio scouting, please visit our website at www.k2bsa.net. For Amateur Radio Newsline, and the K2BSA Amateur Radio Association, this is Bill Stearns, NE4RD. (K2BSA) --- SBBSecho 3.05-Win32 * Origin: RadioWxNet: The Thunderbolt BBS wx1der.dyndns.org (801:1/2) þ Synchronet þ Temple of Doom BBS - tod.eothnet.com .