NOTA 2019

Monday, 22nd of April

Monday, the departure day, started with a secret girls’ morning sauna. After breakfast, we listened to Hungary’s presentation about their youth activities. It was inspiring to hear how they are trying to change this hobby into more fitting for the youth.

After the presentation it was time for people to start packing and later on leave the camp. As you can imagine, it was pretty sad for everyone as we had had a nice camp and had met a lot of wonderful, new people from our hobby! It  would take long before we would meet again. Luckily we have our Telegram group, and why not set up a sked on band too?

But of course we had time for our last lunch together. For the whole weekend we had excellent food prepared by our cook Tiiti OH3HNY with some help from other organizers.

Quickly after lunch, the bus departed for Helsinki airport and harbour. With it, it was time for everyone except Swedish and Finnish teams and our German to leave.

The bus trip may have been a fun one, but the Finns and the Swedes now had the best part of the camp ahead: the rest of the day was devoted to cleaning the venue. The station with the tower and antennas also got down during the day. What a job that was! Later on the evening it was time for team Sweden to leave. Which left only us, Finns (and the German) who left home on Tuesday.

All in all, the camp was a really successful sequel for NOTA 2018 in Sweden! This made a real challenge for the organizing country of NOTA 2020, whoever will it be?! Whatever happens, we hope to see you next year in some other Nordic country!

73 de OH2YOTA team

Sunday, 21st of April

Sunday, the third day of the camp started with the happening invented by the Swedish youth team. The challenge was to design a chosen type of CW paddle (straight, bug or sweeper) and build it out of a piece of plank, conducting tape, nails and the special rule, at least one fruit! The result was 8 keys with bananas an apples, even a Nokia phone! After the competition all the keys were tested on air and many youngsters got to try working CW for the first time.

During this time, half a dozen people were out in the woods activating a OHFF area Teijo National Park (OHFF-0112). It is great that so many wanted to try to activate the park that was 28 km away from Leirisalo. For them the day started early, approximately at 6:30 and they, of course, made some coffee. Everybody didn’t get so excited but the fun part in this hobby is that there is something for everyone.

The view at Teijo National Park was awesome, there was a fireplace and some snacks made by Tiiti OH3HNY. The atmosphere was awesome and we had so much fun.

This time the group had a Yaesu FT-817 and end fed half wave antenna for 80-10m, a log book and five watts to work with. It was a little hard but they did it. Together. Almost sixty QSOs and 2,5h later the youngsters returned back to campsite for lunch.

After the delicious falafel lunch we had four presentations about scouting and JOTA/JOTI from the Netherlands PA3L, Norway LB4IH, Iceland TF2EQ and Finland OH1ESI & OH1UBO. Getting to know your fellow mates in the camp is easiest done by sharing your stories!

Then it was time for the traditional Off air contest. With huge amounts of QRM from several crazy finns our participants max QSO count ended on ca 20 in 9 minutes.

When our ears finally got to rest for a bit it was time for more participant presentations. This time Oliver SA5ODJ introduced all friends to the interesting online material available from Dayton contest university and spoke about yagi theory. After all the presentations everyone learned something, from newbie to pro.

During the evening there was shack operation, ABBA singstar, taco sunday, sauna time and a huge pile of Finnish pancakes. If you’ve followed us on Instagram (@nordicsontheair) you might have seen some fantastic footage from the singstar session…

73 de OH2YOTA NOTA crew

Friday, 19th of April

The organizers view …

The camp, that has been planned since last autumn, is finally here! Organizers of the camp including Finnish youth team with some active adults arrived at the venue, Leirisalo on Thursday. Thursday’s plan was to set up the station, print info papers, make food and make the final plans for the camp.

Friday morning was tough for every organizer. Some of us had been awake until 2, trying to get the station to work. The hours in the morning went fast finishing work from Thursday, and for the last briefings. The first team to arrive in Leirisalo was Sweden and the rest arrived in the afternoon.

The very first afternoon of the camp started with some instructions and going through the upcoming program. Also, we had ice-breaker games to get to know each other.

But that was not all of it. The main program of the day was ahead of us. In this YOTA sub-regional camp we also had the famous YOTA-activity, Intercultural evening.

On the camp, we have  participants from 8 different countries. So we had a lot of new interesting foods and drinks to try. Also, one of the organizers, Vilma, had just come from Taiwan with some exotic Asian foods to bring to us. After all, Intercultural evening on NOTA19 was a very successful and a lot of fun.

Rest of the evening went the Finnish way, going to the sauna! Despite the so-called “shyness” of Finns, everyone got along.

Very good start for the second NOTA, and the second YOTA sub-regional camp of the year!

The participants view …

This morning the Swedish NOTA team woke up in Åbo after a night spent on the ferry. After a short breakfast on a restaurant we all stuffed ourselves into the cars and went to Salo. After about 40 min (plus minus some navigation errors) we arrived in Leirisalo where the camp is held.
After arrival, we started mounting the Yagi-antenna and we got it half way up before lunch.
The lunch (a nice tasting soup) was extra nice tasting due to us being tired and hungry and because of the very good company. The tower work continued after lunch, but we still had a lot to do when the last bunch of people arrived by a charter bus.
It is amazing what the Finnish radio amateurs can do! We found out that everyone participating and organising the camp was a licensed amateur radio operator, from the cook to the bus driver. The Finnish youth team had done a great work in recruiting help for the camp.
The camp site, Leirisalo, comprises a main building, sleeping quarters, summer kitchen with cold eating facilities, and a sauna. The youth team had even delivered a lake next to the sauna, WOW. We were warned of snakes and mosquitoes, the former being poisonous but luckily the latter being the more probable ones to attack us. The place is surrounded by forest on one side and the lake on the other side. Today, the Finnish weather struck us really warm and pleasing, and we are hoping for it to continue so for the whole weekend.

We will be QRV on most short-wave bands during the weekend and we try to activate most modes as well.

We hope to hear you on the bands!
73 de OH2YOTA
(With keyboard ops OH3HNY, Tiiti and SA7GGO, Gustav)