In early February the group received a request to run a Thinking Day on the Air (TDOTA) station for the Brownies and Guides of Chanctonbury district. The request had come via a circuitous route and only reached the group with two weeks to go before the event! Despite the short notice and not having taken part in TDOTA for many years, we managed to put a station on the air.
Ofcom provided a Special Event callsign with less than a week's notice, and despite a number of group members being away on business or holiday, we managed to put a small team together.
The Guides have a lovely hall in Storrington with an area of grass outside suitable for HF antennas. We had the Saturday morning to erect the antenna, then we would be operating the station into the early evening. By lunchtime the station was all set up and the antenna seemed to be working well. 80m was closed, but 40m was busy and a test on 15m resulted in a quick contact with a Greek station.
We were well looked after by the Guide leaders - tea and cake on tap and egg & bacon rolls for lunch. What more could a radio amateur ask for?
Our first visitors arrived after lunch, about a dozen Brownies from the various groups in the district. After a short introductory talk about amateur radio it was on to the serious business of some fun radio activities. The Brownies all prepared their greetings messages, and all got to pass them to stations that we contacted. Some spoke to other Brownie and Guide stations in the UK and some spoke to a museum ship in Rotterdam.
In addition to speaking on the radio, the Brownies were designing QSL cards to send to the stations that we contacted, learning Morse code and practicing their phonetic alphabet. They also produced iced Morse Code biscuits!
At 4pm the Brownies left and about 20 Guides arrived. They would be staying overnight in the hall after the radio station had closed down. Another introductory talk, which brought out the fact that whilst all the Guides use mobile phones, none of them realised that they use radio waves to function!
The Guides were much more reluctant to speak on the radio, although a few did pass messages to other stations. Most of them were keen to design QSL cards though, so we have a range of colourful designs going out to the stations that we contacted.
In total we made 23 contacts, although only three were with other Guide stations. Notably we spent half an hour talking to GB0WOR, Worcester Brownies and Guides, sending and receiving greetings messages between the Brownies at each end. All in all it was a successful day.
Thanks to Nigel, G3YSW for helping us to set up, to Martin, G7RQD and James, M3TIJ for helping throughout the day, and to the leaders and girls of Chanctonbury District Brownies and Guides for making us welcome and looking after us with copious amounts of tea and food!