Calling Plan Established for Boy Scout Camps               29 May 2006
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By Daniel Fisher, AI4GK, South Brevard County, Florida PIO, ARRL
and Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, Technical Coordinator, MD/DC Section ARRL

This file covers three topis:

1) Using FRS radios as an intro level to amateur radio and getting
scouts to use FRS radio planning in all activities. 
See www.aprs.org/frsnight.html

2) A Scout Camps Calling Protocol (SCCP) for the HF bands. See below.

3) A global scouts CQ CALLING system for APRS.  See below.

THE SCOUT CAMP CALLING PROTOCOL (SCCP):
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A small group of Amateur Radio operators involved in Boy Scouts of 
America recently established a calling plan for Boy Scout camps.

In late April 06, Nathaniel Frissell, W2NAF, posed a challenge, on
the Scout Radio Yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ScoutRadio, 
to come up with a summer camp net so that Scouts can talk to one 
another. 

After a very few weeks of discussion led by Frank Krizan, KR1ZAN, 
President of the K2BSA Amateur Radio Association, the members came 
up with an HF calling plan, dubbed Scout Camps Calling Protocol, 
or SCCP. This is a plan for ham-Scouts and Scouters throughout the 
world to make contact with other Scouts and Scouters for Radio Merit 
Badge requirements, Amateur Radio demonstrations, emergency 
preparedness, passing NTS traffic, or any other purpose, including 
ragchewing. 

"The intent is to encourage camps and folks at home to get on the air 
at prescribed times and provide radio contacts for scouts at camp - 
for many of whom this will be their first amateur radio contact," 
said Krizan. 

The SCCP plan's strength is its simplicity.

1.	Scout camps, and any interested ham-Scouters not at camp, are 
encouraged to get on the air at 1300, 1900, and 2100 hours local time.  
And or send out an APRS message to SCOUTS on VHF at any time 
(see details below).

2.	Calling times extend from 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after 
the hour. The recognized call will be "CQ SCOUT CAMPS."

3.	Use the traditional Scout calling frequencies, +/- 10 KHz, 
avoiding any nets. See the web page:
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/ead/jota.html#frequencies 

      BAND	SSB	CW
      80 Meters	3.740 / 3.940 MHz	3.590 MHz
      40 Meters	7.270 MHz *	7.030 MHz
      20 Meters	14.290 MHz **	14.070 MHz ***

4.	There are two frequency bands for each time. Participating 
stations will use the higher band during the 5 minutes before the hour 
and the lower band during the 5 minutes after the hour to maximize 
propagation conditions.

5.	The bands to use are:
      1.	Daytime (1300 and 1900 hours): 20m/40m.
      2.	Nighttime (2100 hours): 40m/80m.

6.	Scout camps, Scouts and Scouters from the United States, 
Canada, and the rest of the world are encouraged to monitor 
according to the plan from 1700Z to 2000Z and from 2300Z to 0400Z 
to support Scout camps with traffic handling and talking with Scouts.

*   7.270 might be unusable in the evening and night hours due to 
Asian broadcast stations. Tune up or down to find an opening.
**  Avoid 14.300, since the Maritime Mobile Service Net and the 
    Intercontinental Traffic Net use this frequency.
*** Although 14.070 is listed as the Scout CW calling frequency, do 
    not use it because it is the international PSK-31 frequency. 
    Suggested frequency is 14.065. Please refer to the following 
    link for more details.
    http://homepage.mac.com/k2frd/JOTA.htm 

GLOBAL CQ's ON APRS:
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Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, developer of Automatic Position Reporting 
System (APRS) and another avid ham-Scouter, has added the following 
suggestions for Scout camps and ham-Scouters equipped with APRS.

1. If your camp has APRS, send a message to CQSRVR at the beginning 
and end of all operating periods.  

2. In the message, use the text "CQ SCOUTS CQ SCOUTS ..." where "..." 
is free text relevant to your situation.  This message will go to ALL
other similar stations in the world LIVE.  Please see the web page:
www.aprs.org/cqsrvr.html

3.	Make sure that your station is using the APRS symbol for Scouts. 
That way, any other station in the world can check the APRS FINDU Web 
page and see live which other SCOUT stations are on the air.
http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/symbol.cgi?icon=/,&limit=2000 

Bob Bruninga
WB4APR