2008 JOTA-JOTI game:

A new adventure of John Bont.

To take part in this exciting game, Scouts need:

• a JOTA radio station capable to communicate with other JOTA stations, preferably on the HF bands.
• A PC connected to the internet or a radio contact with someone that operates such a PC.
• A printer connected to the PC.
• A piece of yellow paper, letter size or A4 size.
• A similar piece of blank, white paper and a pencil to make notes.
• Scout map reading skills.
• Ingenuity and creativity.

Scouts can take part individually, in patrol units or as a group.

John Bont is the special agent of the Bureau of Information and Valuables (BIV). For this new mission, John has to retrace vital information that has gone missing, information that may lead him to a long-lost treasure. The BIV suspects it is hidden on a non-populated island, somewhere. Luckily, John was able to find a map of the Island.

The Bureau has arranged that John is airlifted to this island; he is dropped by parachute at point A (253472). After his safe landing, John Bont takes his compass: he has to walk 1.4 km in the direction 45 degrees. John quickly walks in a straight line and arrives at point B (plot his position on the map and note the map coordinates).

Here at B he is able to use his short-wave radio. He checks his watch for the correct time, and dials his radio to the agreed frequency. Then he listens for a contact with HB9S. John fist reports the coordinates of his position at point B. If he does this correctly, he receives a code set of 4 numbers. John knows that in case he cannot reach HB9S directly, he can also ask another participating radio station in the network for this information. It may take a while before he finds someone who has these numbers, but he is patient and keeps trying. At last he succeeds and carefully writes down the 4 numbers he received. He marks them as group Y.

Quickly John packs up his gear and rushes another 1.6 km in the direction 350 degrees. This is point C (mark this on the map and again note the map coordinates). At C he finds an old smugglers cabin with a PC. And yes, the PC is still working. Would this be the key to the lost information?

John makes contact with internet. He starts his favourite search engine and searches the entire internet for the keywords “BIV mission code”. With some patience John finds a web page that BIV has prepared for him. The page shows an address group. John carefully notes down this address information and he notes it as group X.

John’s heart beats fast as he types the following address into the PC’s web browser: http:\\www.[address group X][4 numbers of group Y].htm.

A mysterious web page appears on the screen. Yes! John pushes the print button but in his enthusiasm forgot to switch the printer on. He puts the special yellow paper in the printer and tries again. Yes, he’s got it !!

John Bont carefully folds the paper and puts it in his pocket. Mission accomplished. He walks outside and finds a shady place under a tree. He opens up his lunch box to find out what BIV has prepared him for lunch..….

The radio-bridge experiment: internet travels over radio-waves.

If you are in for a new experiment during this JOTA, read on.

The use of internet continues to take on an ever increasing role in everyday life. However, a network connection is not readily available anywhere. In particular if you are living in a country with a less developed infrastructure or simply in a very vast area. Radio amateurs can contribute to a possible solution. The technology has been developed that allows you to have an internet connection over a wireless radio link, not just over a short distance in your house e.g., but over thousands of kilometres away, if that is where the nearest internet connection point is for you. This means that you could check your email or have an IRC chat even when you’re aboard a ship on the ocean, or camping in the wilderness. No we are not using expensive satellite phone connections, but simple short-wave radio’s, just like the ones in use for JOTA.

Your Scout group can take part in an experiment we will run during the 51st JOTA.

To take part you need:

• to set up your JOTA station at a camp site or at a similar remote location that has no fixed nor WiFi internet connection.
• a local power generator or Scout power (tred mill, crank generator, use your fantasy.)
• a Scout built antenna tower
• an HF short-wave transmitter connected to a radio modem
• a laptop computer
• some patience and a lot of Scout ingenuity
• to register your participation in the experiment so we can send you detailed information.

There is a deeper aim behind this experiment. We would like to explore the possibilities to offer a basic internet service to Scout groups that are in very remote area’s and do not have a lot of means of their own. Such a radio-bridge could bring them a little closer to the world. A Scout contribution to closing the “digital divide”?

Curious what this experiment could offer your Scouts for the 51st JOTA? Read more details.

Free JOTA-JOTI web account

A free web account can be obtained by registering your station for JOTA or JOTI. This can be helpful and offers a set of extra tools to you. A common system is available for you on-line to prevent that participants have to register in two different systems (national and world). National Organizers can access the information of stations in their own country or Association. The registration system is meant for Scout groups, not individuals and can be accessed via the web (link will be available here in due time before the event). Registration is not an obligation (except in some countries as indicated by the National Organizer), but offers a set of advantages.

After a successful registration, an account is created in the World JOTA-JOTI database. With that account Scout groups are able to use several services For example, the group can search for the location of other stations and can get additional contact details like email address, radio call sign or IRC nickname. Furthermore they can validate a JOTI contact by special on-line cards, generate their own participation certificates and get a special email address that prevents them from being bothered by junk mails later.

National Organizers can contact the World Organization to make sure they have access to the system and can download the information of stations in their Association. National Organizers can also create their own national form within the system should they need particular information from their Scout groups, other than what is already provided for in the database.

National JOTA - JOTI 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 want to ask them to prepare for that and send a short story of their activities to their National Organizer after the event. Good (colour) photographs will help to illustrate the event. Ask the help of a Scout photographer at your station.

National organizers are kindly requested to send “the story” of their country to the World Scout Bureau soon after the event. Please write us your ideas and comments, suggestions for future programmes and a description of the most exiting contacts.

To help you compile your story, a form will be available for download from the NJO-network web server before the event. A paper version is no longer included with the circular, but can be send to you upon request. Please contact the World Scout Bureau should you want to receive the paper form. The figures that are requested on the form will be used to compile some statistics. A reasonable estimate would be appreciated if they cannot be specified accurately.

Photographs showing Scouts in uniform at the microphone or keyboard and of other activities like electronic kit building, foxhunting, semaphore, map plotting and the like are most welcome. Please note that we do not need all your photographs (some Associations sent CD’s full of them in the past), 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.

To note also the on-line web log service where Scout groups can document their participation details (available via the registration system). A web log is a on-line diary which is displayed in journal style on a website. Reports and photos can be added here as well as special JOTA-JOTI information like longest or interesting contact. Since Scouts do have a powerful tool with the web log software, documentation of the weekend is very easy. National Organizers can use the web log as a source for making their National JOTA-JOTI story. Also, the World Scout Bureau will be able to use it to supplement the world report.

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

15 December 2008.

We kindly ask you to please respect this deadline, as we unfortunately cannot guarantee publication of material received after this date.

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