Wythall Beavers’ Transatlantic Contact!
Beaver Scouts from Wythall chatted with radio amateurs on the west coast of the USA during their communications evening.
Fifteen 6-8 year-olds talked with Doug KK7BRS and Olivia KK7HDO from Lake Washington Ham Club in Seattle. This radio club is very focussed on young radio hams, one of whom is Olivia.
The QSOs were hosted by Les 2E0LRV from Wythall Radio Club (photo left). He used a Yeasu FT8800 mobile radio with a patch lead as an antenna into an All Star node tethered to his mobile phone, using the phone data to connect to the internet. 
Matt KN4ZXV in Florida kindly stood-by in case of any difficulties getting through to the Washington repeater.
The Beavers – from 1st Tidbury Green (Wythall) Scout Group – also sent and received simple messages using Morse code buzzers, helped by John M6KET and Chris G3YHF, two of the Club’s CW enthusiasts.
And Roger M0GWM ran a session in which groups of Beavers used licence-free handhelds to exchange messages via the phonetic alphabet.
This communications evening is a regular event for Wythall Radio Club. We held similar ones in 2018 and 2019.
At the end of the evening, each Beaver received a certificate confirming the communication skills they had gained.
They went away buzzing, and several were overheard excitedly telling their parents about speaking across ‘the pond’ – and right across the American continent too!
We’d like to thank our friends in the US for assisting with the QSOs – they showed the real Ham Radio spirit!
