Guides on the Air 2017

Club members hosted several Girl Guide groups for the first time this year in their annual Guides on the Air (GOTA) event. This year we used the two largest rooms in Centennial Arena and set up four activities. We had 25 girls in attendance plus their leaders. Everyone seemed to have a fun time at it including the club members! 

We opened the session with a talk by Ralph about Ham Radio and some of the interesting things done by hams. We them split the girls into 3 groups and rotated them through three stations. One was a Morse code and phonetics centre, another was practicing talking on handheld and the third was our HF/VHF station. We were able to have the girls talking with other girls at the North shore club, this was done on VHF using our repeater. On Konsta's K3S we browsed the bands a bit but settled on talking with a XYL operating in Fred's station with the special Vimy Ridge call sign. The band was empty so she took the time to chat with the girls, which was greatly appreciated.

Over all it was a great exposure to radio for the girls and their leaders, and the club members had fun sharing their hobby with our next generation.