When is a ham club POTA not just a ham club POTA? When it turns into an impromptu on-the-air outing for Scouts working to earn their Radio Merit Badge. Jen DeSalvo W9TXJ was there.

JEN: It started as a club POTA at the historic Santa Fe Prairie Nature Preserve just outside of Chicago City Limits.

DENNIS: We were just going to do a POTA event and one of the members is a Scout leader and said "Well, hey, how about if I bring some Scouts?"

JEN: That member was Dennis Calderone, KC9DSP, president of the Suburban Technical Amateur Radio System, referring to Tom Bosworth, KE9JQ, who is both an amateur radio operator and active in Scouts for nearly four decades. Tom is cub master for a local pack.

TOM: .....And I'm a Radio Merit Badge Counselor. We expected four or five to show up and we have 35 here today.

JEN: That was for a Radio Merit Badge Class. Tom says it is inevitable that kids will grow up to have careers in computers and technology.

TOM: This is the most basic technology you're going to have.

JEN: He said the first thing hs covered with the Scouts was to tell them what radio is....

TOM: ....which isn't just ham radio. Obviously, it's also broadcast radio. It's your garage-door opener.

JEN: The club set up five stations, giving the Scouts a hands-on experience of how everything works. Club members set up stations for FT8, CW/Morse Code.

[[NATS – CW]]

JEN: They used mobile units to hit their 2-meter repeater and operate sideband voice.

TOM: One of the requirements is for them to talk to five other stations. So when they're on sideband and when they're on FT8, they're actually participating in the communication.

JEN: Dennis, the club's president, plans to host more events for local Scouts to not only earn their Radio Merit Badge but to carry the torch of ham radio.

DENNIS: We have to get the youth involved and pass it down generation after generation - get them involved so that they can get into this community to help people out.