JAMBOREE ON THE AIR; SCOUTS RADIO EACH OTHER 'ROUND THE WORLD.

Byline: Gloria Gonzales Daily News Staff Writer

Troop members from throughout Ventura County made radio contact Saturday with fellow Scouts in places as distant as Tokyo and Buenos Aires during the 40th Annual Scout Jamboree on the Air.

Ventura County Scouts worked with amateur radio clubs in three locations - Berylwood Elementary School in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks Methodist Church in Thousand Oaks and the Newbury Park LDS Stake Center in Newbury Park.

``We want to help the Scouts earn their participation badges and also earn points toward their radio merit badges,'' said Diane Belcher, a spokesman for the Simi Settlers Amateur Radio Club. Club members set up five stations, including a packet station and four ham radio stations, on the school grounds.

``We also want to give Scouts an opportunity to get on the air and learn about all the possibilities of amateur radio.''

Packet radio is one of the new possibilities radio enthusiasts enjoy, Belcher said. A packet station links a radio to a computer, and instead of communicating by voice, the parties type messages to one another. Last year, Scouts participating in the jamboree contacted the Mir Space Station through a packet system.

``I'm sure they'll try this year, they have the schedule showing when the station will be overhead,'' Belcher said.

Whole troops stopped by the park throughout the day, and when contact was made with another troop half way across the world, they lined up to say hello, either through voice or morse code communication.

``I talked with a guy in Argentina, and I also talked with a man named Jerry who's across town at the emergency operations center,'' said Evan Bastian of Troop 618. ``I talked to Jerry for more than 10 minutes and that's one of the requirements for my merit badge.''

Bastian also needs 15 contacts for his radio merit badge, and hoped to make several more contacts during the day.

By the end of the day, organizers hoped that Scouts would have contacted other Scouts in all 50 states and in dozens of countries.

``We're making the contacts,'' said Mike Kerney, the Scout coordinator for the event. ``The biggest problem we've had so far is the kids get up to the mike and they freeze, we call it mike fright.''

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PHOTO (color) Boy Scouts Erik Saeger, 13, left, and Chris London, 14, from Moorpark's Troop 707 practice Morse code for the Jamboree on the Air.

Tina Gerson/Daily News