Rideau Challenge Journey - RCJ

First off, thanks for showing your interest as a volunteer. Both New Hams Ottawa, NHO, and Rideau Challenge Journey, RCJ, groups are excited to explore how radio communications can support a wilderness based hiking challenge for scouting aged youth of the National Capital Region of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

If you have already registered for this year, thank you, we are still working on the back end of the system while we wait to get details of the event routes for this year. We will be in touch and if you need to get in touch with us before hand the group email is vp at oarc.net.

The RCJ usually takes place Mother’s day weekend. For 2025 it will be May 10 & 11. You are invited to join us for either or both days. Radio Operators will be required to have their stations operational 30 minutes before hiking starts. Some locations are start only and so if you can only spend an hour or so with us on Saturday we do have about 3 or 4 spots where we could use your help around 8 am.

The New Hams Ottawa “Offer of Service” to the Rideau Challenge Journey includes

• Saturday 8:00am to 5:00pm
• Sunday 8:00am to 1:00pm

In 2022 Dave, VE3FCQ, organized the first year that NHO partnered with RCJ to bring better location data of the scout troops to the organizers. This also included some path testing and so now we strive to put the lower power stations closer to NC with those that have 50 watts out at the edges.

The net will operate on a simplex frequency and stations may be required to relay traffic to and from NC. You will need a transmitter capable of at least 25 watts. If you have the ability to erect an antenna on a mast or hang one from a tree that will help improve your ability to communicate with the net. We also encourage you to have a script such as the one at the bottom of the page to introduce Amateur Radio to the youth by letting them announce their arrival or departure at a checkpoint.

If you wish to volunteer for the event please complete the New Hams Ottawa Volunteer Registration form. This form will help us manage volunteer registrations and contact details. Upon submitting your registration we will follow up with some additional details. In the meantime you can reach us at VP at OARC.net

New Hams Ottawa (NHO) is an unincorporated group of new and seasoned Amateur Radio operators. Our goal is to provide new radio operators with some basic information about Amateur Radio and get them active in the hobby. The group hosts a weekly radio net for new and returning hams to provide a venue to practice participating in a VHF radio net that is also accessible through EchoLink.

The Rideau Challenge Journey (RCJ) has been running since 1990 when Rod Wilson, Alex Seaborn and a team of Ottawa area Scouters from the 1st Manotick Scout Troop first introduced the Rideau Challenge Journey. The RCJ is a program to assist Scouts to gain experience in travelling under their own steam at a level appropriate to their age and ability. Since its beginning the Rideau Challenge Journey has been an annual event hosted by the Rideau Area and is open to all scout groups on a first come first serve basis. Learn more about Rideau Challenge Journey.

We are organizing event related documentation through Google Drive. If you are unable to access these resources please let us know and we can provide copies of the documents by way of e-mail attachments.

Frequencies

We will be operating on simplex: 146.55 MHz is the primary and 147.57 MHz is the backup.

Maps

You can download the 2025 maps with this link. You can download the 2025 assignments spreadsheet with this link.

You can download the 2024 maps with this link. Please note that the PDF file is 27 MB in size. If you want the map without any markups use this link download the 2023 maps with this link. Note that the date in the upper corner of the map is the date that Energy, Mines and Resources last updated the map. Here is the link to a 36 meg pdf of the route where all three maps have been stitched together.

Sample script to have Scouts use the radio to report their position.

You can download the sample script from this link. The .docx file is only 7 KB in size.

In case you cannot open .docx (Word) files, download a PDF version from this link.