JOTA 2011

Once again we took part in the annual JOTA event, operating over the weekend 15/16thOctober from Scout HQ in Finnart St.

JOTA 2011 Logo

JOTA 2011 Logo

The JOTA Station was staffed by Explorer Scout Stephanie McCann, Active Support members Bob Lynch, George & Kai McClintock and Guide Leader Eunice Lynch.  This year was our most successful JOTA event ever. We made contact with 16 Scout Radio stations across the UK, Scout Radio stations from Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Portugal, Luxembourg and for the first time ever  a Japanese Scout Radio station located in Akita .  We were also able to contact  radio operators in countries from all over the world including our own Royal Observer Corps operating from an old WW2 Bunker.

Tuning the Radio

Tuning the Radio

Scouts from 32ndGreenock & District spoke with their Swiss counterparts and exchanged greetings messages. The Swiss Scouts were very interested to hear about the Scouts from this area who attended the World Jamboree.  Our Scouts all crowded round the radio to listen to a Swiss Scout tell them about Scouting in Switzerland, including details about their troop.

In another first for us, Stephanie made contact with the Gilwell Park Scout Radio Station – GB2GP, the UK Scout HQ Station.

There was a lot of excitement and cheers when the contact was made with the Scout Leader from Japan!  Bob had a long chat with Scout Radio Operator Motoi from Akita who told him about his wife Izumi and son Heiwa who are also members of the Scout Organisation and Radio Operators.

By ionosphere Posted in News

Raspberry Pi

How about a a computer for $25 -$35 ???  That’s what the Raspberry Pi Foundation hopes will become a reality.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation’ is a UK registered charity (Registration Number 1129409) which exists to promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level, and to put the fun back into learning computing.

It plans to develop, manufacture and distribute an ultra-low-cost computer, for use in teaching computer programming to children. It is anticipated that this computer will have many other applications both in the developed and the developing world.

The first product is about the size of a credit card, and is designed to plug into a TV or be combined with a touch screen for a low cost tablet. The expected price is in the region of $25- $35 for a fully-configured system.

Provisional specification
700MHz ARM11
128MB or 256MB of SDRAM
OpenGL ES 2.0
1080p30 H.264 high-profile decode
Composite and HDMI video output
USB 2.0
SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot
General-purpose I/O
Optional integrated 2-port USB hub and 10/100 Ethernet controllerOpen software (Ubuntu, Iceweasel, KOffice, Python)

Provisional launch date is November 2011. For more information, check out the blog at http://www.raspberrypi.org/

By ionosphere Posted in News