The national Radio Scouting team (Plusscouts PA3EFR/J) will be operating from an Operation Manna drop zone near Gouda, The Netherlands. Read on for further details on this team and their radio station location.
The Plusscouts are heavily involved with the Scout&Guide movement and put on a radio station for a different Scout group every year during Jamboree On The Air (JOTA), as well as Thinking Day On The Air (TDOTA). They have done this together with the members of the national Fellowship, Plusscouts PA3EFR/J, since the 80’s. In the time between these scouting and guiding-related weekends they plan many other Special Event Station activities to keep the experience vivid and the skills alive.
Of the team, Sander PD9HIX and Erwin PA3EFR have both served in the Dutch Air Force with Erwin having recently retired (May 2024), but Sander still being active. These guys put on some of the best Commemoration Stations in the world.
They have been to Normandy this year twice( 2024 ). The first time it was for the International Scout Camporee, held by 1400 American Scouts. The station had the task of putting out the message of peace that the children had written themselves. The callsign for this event was TM80OMAH.
The second time was during the 80th anniversary of D-day. They made over 2600 contacts worldwide. Many stations wanted to share a bit of their own experience about being in the forces. A lot of them even had stories about WW2. Either it was about family, and every once in a while they actually spoke to a veteran who landed on the beaches! The special callsign for the station was TM80DDAY.
In September 2024, the Plusscouts supported another radio team in commemorating Operation Market Garden with huge success. From Groesbeek, near Nijmegen, just south of Arnhem, callsign PA80OMG was heard throughout a full week in the actual dropzone.
Next year plans are to have many activities including a station to commemorate Operation Veritable with callsign PA80OV. The location is Gennep, close to the German border in the east part of The Netherlands.
The other plan is to put up a station in Wageningen, where WWII finally ended for The Netherlands where the Germans signed the collaboration on the 5th of May 1945. Every year a lot of festivities are held in this town. It also marks the long journey of the Plusscouts, which started in 2019 to follow the footsteps of the 82nd Airborn Division. The station call will be PA82AD, the last of five remarkable locations where the 82nd made a difference towards the liberation of Europe.
World War Two left a trail of devastation across Europe. The Netherlands, occupied by Nazi Germany, faced severe food shortages. In nineteen forty-five, Operation Manna offered a beacon of hope. Allied aircraft dropped food parcels from the skies, saving countless lives. This humanitarian mission became a symbol of international cooperation and compassion. The Dutch Radio Scouting Team will setup their station in Dropzone November, shown on the map as number 3.
 | The team uses Google Sketchup to make 3D images and movies of the planned location. This helps to get a feeling of what will be involved in the antenna park setup and associated tenting. It also allows measuring required cabling for coax and commercial power lines. |
| The exact location of this site can be found on GRID.RADIO or by clicking on the image of the map on the right. Thanks, Rose, 2E0RXO, for providing this HAM-tool., |  |
The team for PH80MAN will consist of the crew members of the Plusscouts PA3EFR/J, possibly supported by visiting operators from Germany, Luxemburg, Italy, and/or The Netherlands. The station is operational and open to the public on 25-27 April 2024.
In our search to the actual drop-zone we came across some historical images of the food droppings on dropzone November. These help to imagine the relief for the population whilst still under German control.
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The foreseen fixed team members of the PH80MAN operation:
We are all delighted to see that many visitors to our page.
These sponsors are kind enough to support our event:
 Stal Wijnen Hosting the physical radio station |  Support in ICT services |  Barry, PC1K Support with Programming services |
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….and as you can see, we still have room for sponsorships.
| This time we will certainly use our Pile Up Control System (PUCS). It will bring you to our Plusscouts PA3EFR/J website where the PUCS system is explained and it is the place where you can “claim” your QSO-spot in the pile-up. During our commemoration station TM-80-DDAY in Normandy, the number of simultaneous stations calling us forced us to find a better solution than to work with frequency shifts. After consulting a club member in The Hague, Barry PC1K kindly developed a software tool (PUCS) to control the pileup by a registration system for stations that would like to work with us, but lack for instance enough power. See the website for further guidance in applying PUCS. |  |
 | Another fine tool is the HAMCLOCK (as shown here on the left) You can easily install HAMCLOCK on a WINDOWS PC by following the instructions, or install it on LINUX as it was designed for this platform. The page includes a step-by-step installation method and a reference to the Operational Guidelines. If this is all too complicated, feel free to lift with us on our online HAMCLOCK, but please refrain from changing the layout of our tool. |
| A special Radio Award related to this event could be earned by working at least 3 other stations involved in this event. To find out if you earned the award feel free to check our registration page by clicking on the award image of Operation Manna. |  |
During the event QRZ.com will be used for logging radio contacts (QSO’s). A logbook overview of the last QSO’s are displayed on this page as well.