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January 12, 2019
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December YOTA Month 2018 Final Report

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Another December came and went, and with it another edition of December YOTA Month did as well. We are happy to host an event which brings young people – licensed HAM radio operators and youngster who are new to the hobby and are making their first QSOs alike, and inspires them to be more active on the bands and shows them there are many people listening on the other side. For a better overlook on the past month we make sure to keep statistics; this is not to say that the joy isn’t in the experience, but rather to confirm it. This year as many as 44 participating stations made 82,938 QSOs in December, proving once again that neither the weather nor the holidays can keep a radio amateur away from the station. And while December YOTA Month is not a competition, for the truly devoted to catching as many special calls as they can, there were awards and in 2018 there were 1516 awards downloaded throughout the DYM period. Most active this December were II5YOTA with the whopping 8,387 QSOs made from their station, whereas the 28th of December proved to be the most active day for the participating stations as 5,326 QSOs were made on that day alone. The most popular mode remains SSB with 46,989 QSOs made in this mode, followed by 28,064 QSOs made in CW, while 40m (30,280 QSOs) and 20m (31,004 QSOs) were the preferred bands. You can find the respective charts under https://events.ham-yota.com/stats where a more detailed presentation might be entertaining for you, but while the numbers are important to keeping track of things, what has been the most important to us from the very first December YOTA Month and will keep being the prime goal for the future as well, is that it continues to be an event that is awaited with excitement and concentrates on bringing young people in a world they might have not known anything about, yet might find themselves mesmerised by. So to all of you who show them the way to their first QSOs, keep up the great job and we can’t wait to hear from you next December.

January 1, 2019
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5 January 2019 Kids Day

By | Publication | One Comment

The 5th of January it’s again Kids Day. This event is especially created to promote Amateur Radio to youth. This is a moment where you can share your amateur radio hobby with your family, grandkids, friends, scouts or even to the general public. This day can be the first time for youth to experience a real radio QSO, hopefully they get interested in becoming a licensed amateur radio operator.

You could make use of this suggested exchange: Name, age, location and favourite colour. Be sure to work the same station again if an operator has changed. To draw attention, call “CQ Kids Day.”

Suggested frequencies IARU R1:
10 Meters: 28.350 to 28.400 MHz
15 Meters: 21.360 to 21.400 MHz
20 Meters: 14.270 to 14.300 MHz
40 Meters: 7.080 to 7.120 MHz
80 Meters: 3.650 to 3.750 MHz

Other suggested frequencies by ARRL:
12 Meters: 24.960 to 24.980 MHz
17 Meters: 18.140 to 18.145 MHz
40 Meters: 7.270 to 7.290 MHz
80 Meters: 3.740 to 3.940 MHz

Next Kids Day will be 15 June 2019.

December 18, 2018
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Call for application: Youngsters On The Air Bulgaria 2019

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We are proud to announce that the 9th edition of Youngsters On The Air will be held in Bulgaria, close to the capital city Sofia. BFRA (Bulgarian Federation of Radioamateurs) will be hosting the event, which will take place in the summer of 2019.
In this YOTA Camp we will be continuing with our train-the-trainer (TTT) program, which will be the main theme of the week. Participants will be working on the future of amateur radio and will be involved in workshops where they gain skills to start similar amateur radio youth events when they are back home. With this we are aiming to create a snowball effect, there will be more and more YOTA events all over the world. This also allows other youngsters and newcomers to enjoy amateur radio.
Last YOTA we kicked off our train-the-trainer program, the first outcomes are available on the TTT website.

TTT will not be the only topic of the event, there will be time to enjoy amateur radio as well, think about visiting LZ9W, kit-building or visiting the factory of ACOM. We will be enjoying Bulgaria and get the opportunity to see a part of the beautiful country. Since there are many nationalities visiting the event, there will cultural elements in the event. One of them will be the intercultural evening, where all participants bring foods and drinks from their home country.

Previous events have shown that all participants are having an unforgettable week, where many new friendships are started. To obtain a better understanding of such an event you are encouraged to have a look at the gallery and video clips from previous YOTA camps at www.ham-yota.com.

Participants
Each IARU R1 member society is invited to take part with a team, of maximum 5 persons. The final team size will be dependent on the number of total applications. A team consist of a team leader and team members. We request member societies to select motivated youngsters with an organisational and hands-on mindset. This request requires a commitment from member societies to support these youngsters when they return home after the event.

Team leader
– Age 18-30 years, since we are highly focussing on a train-the-trainer program, it is preferred to select a youth coordinator or person who is eager to organize amateur radio youth events.
A person that already attended to a previous YOTA Camp is preferable.

Team member
– Age 15-25 years
– Have not been on previous YOTA summer camps
If a member society has a valid reason to select a participant who has been to a previous YOTA event, the IARU R1 Youth WG needs to be aware of this and will make the final decision.

All participants, including team leaders, should take part in the entire program.

When: 11 to 17 August 2019

Location: surrounding of Sofia, Bulgaria

Fees: €25 per participant
All other costs (accommodation, food, activities) are covered.
Teams will be picked up at the airport/railway station and transported to the venue, or shall come the venue with own transportation.

After the event
It is expected from all participants to take after the event actively part in the TTT program of IARU R1 and that they submit their youth programs and plans. This will be shared as well on the TTT website. All participating teams are committing to write an article about the event for the magazine and/or website of their member society.

Should your member society be interested to participate, please respond by filling in the form (https://goo.gl/forms/EzejaqnTiTAYvht83) before 1 February 2019. Remember, there is a limit of 80 participants. Make sure that you apply in time. We will announce the participating countries, including number of team members, shortly after the deadline date.

November 15, 2018
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December YOTA Month – Bulletin 2018

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December is getting closer and closer … and what does this mean for us?
It‘s time for some great activity on the bands in the upcoming DYM 2018!

But it’s not a good event without some rules, attached to this post you can find the official bulletin of 2018.

All participating stations will receive the PDF via the registered mail address as well.

This bulletin contains information like …

  • Overall rules for the event
  • Log system for approved callsigns
  • Station profiles on the DYM website
  • How to handle qrz.com pages
  • QSL policy
  • Hamyota on social media
  • FAQs
  • Funding
  • Newly implemented award system
  • General contact information

But the most important thing during the event … have fun and bring the youngsters on the radio!

Because we know that there is YOUTH in hamradio!

 

You can find the PDF here …

DYM_2018_Bulletin

November 11, 2018
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Youth Contesting Program 2018 – DQ5M (@DM9EE)

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After seeing posts about the YCP at DM9EE I immediately applied, eager to be able to take part in
the CQWW SSB contest from a big contest station. My contest experience was limited, having only
participated at smaller stations and once at 9A1A as part of the YCP program. I was eager to gain
experience and learn more about contest techniques and strategies.
Six youngsters were selected to go to DM9EE for the contest, 4 of them coming from various
regions of Germany, one from Sweden and myself from Austria. It was an interesting combination
of people, with different skill levels, some having only operated QRP stations whilst others had
been to large contest stations before.
On Friday we arrived at the DX-Hotel in Holzminden in the north of Germany owned by Carsten
Dauer, DM9EE. The DX-Hotel (see dm9ee.de for more information) is a normal hotel, only that in
the garden there are two high masts with yagi antennas on top and a 4 square for the 80 meter
band. The station itself consisted of two IC-7851 transceivers with an OM-Power and an ACOM
amplifier. One thing some of us had never seen before was the micro ham system which connects
all parts of the station. The functionality it provided was impressive, however before we could get
started some tweaking was required so we got right to work to make sure everything was working
flawlessly. Thankfully we arrived early before contest begin so we had enough time. At the last
minute we had to solder a new control cable for one of the amplifiers as we changed the set up a
little to optimise the station.
The antenna systems were great, an opti beam ob-17-4 (3 element on 40m, 4ele on 20m, 4ele on
15m and 6ele on 10m), a 4 square for 80 meters and an inverted L wire antenna for 160 meters. All
of this concealed in the garden of the hotel. A big thank you to Carsten, DM9EE who not only
provided the station and his experience but also housed us in his luxurious hotel. I am sure no
other contest team lived and ate as well as we did during the contest.
We operated using the call DQ5M, a special youth contesting callsign. During the contest we
changed operators approximately every 3 hours, however sometimes we operated for 4 or 5 hours
and other times we changed more frequently. There was no tight schedule, if an operator wanted
to be replaced, one of us would jump at the opportunity to operate again. The contest itself was
very interesting, we had never seen the bands so extremely full. It was an interesting experience
and a challenge to call on a frequency when you can hear and even understand the station above
and below you. We quickly noticed that we were able to achieve better rates using search and
pounce, especially for multipliers. Towards the end of the contest we had to resort to calling on a
frequency as we had already worked all stations which we were able to hear on the band, the band
map became very empty. Occasionally a new multiplier would pop up in he cluster and we would
immediately try to work it before resuming to calling.
The social aspect of this event can not be overlooked, new friendships were made and we all
share an enthusiasm for youth work and will work together to spread our hobby among young
people in the future. I have noticed that one of the key factors which makes it difficult to get new
youngsters into the hobby is that there is a lack of other people their age who they can practice the
hobby with, then they quickly loose interest and become inactive. Small events like the YCP events
are perfect to change this. Even though there are quite a few youngsters in Austria, they do not
know each other, they have to be connected at events such as this one. Furthermore a weekend
activity together is the perfect opportunity to get to know each other, the team which met at DQ5M
will stay connected and work together in youth work. Amateur radio needs more events like these
to grow and to pass the hobby on to the next generation.

73 de Monty, OE3VVU
DQ5M YCP team

 

October 12, 2018
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Youth Contesting Program 2018 – 4O4YCP (@4O3A)

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I had heard of the YCP from my friends Fiodor IZ7YBG and Riccardo IV3CVN so I decided to apply myself to see a big contest station at work. I has been chosen for 4O3A, for CQWW RTTY 2018 contest, so I planned my travel by car to Montenegro. At the airport of Dubrovnik I met Florian PB8DX and together we reached the 4O3A peninsula, because we cannot use mobile phones in Montenegro we used 2 repeaters to talk with Marko who helped us with directions.

Finally, on the evening of Thursday we arrived at the meeting point where Marko 4O9TTT picked up us and took us to the station, it’s on a mountain so a 4×4 vehicle was needed to reach it, Marko is the president of the MARP and stayed with us for the contest to help us with FlexRadio, we met also Roby E77E, the chef, there was also Ljubomir YU5EEA who was testing the station with a pile up. During the next day Jahko YU3EEA joined us and the contest team was complete, we met Ranko 4O3A during the afternoon, he with Marko explained how to manage the station and use FlexRadio and also some suggestions for the contest.

During the contest we had planned shifts of 4 and 6 hours to work at the station and go to sleep, shifts were good and also sleep was needed to survive the 48hrs.

The Monday after the contest we went to the SKYLAB, the house of Ranko and also the laboratory where the FlexRadio are made, it was very interesting to see how a sdr radio is created. After a good lunch with ćevapčići I left for return to Italy which took 1 a day and a half.

I am very happy for this experience, it has given me the opportunity to improve my ham radio skills, meet new people and visit new countries. Many thanks again for the great opportunity and all the work of the team in 4O to make it all happen.

I suggest every youngster to apply for the YCP, you will not regret!

73 de Matteo, IU2GGL
team member 4O4YCP (@4O3A)

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October 8, 2018
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December YOTA Month application is open

By | Publication, YOTA Month 2018 | 2 Comments

Apply now for December YOTA Month.
Make sure to register before December starts!

The last few months of 2018 are approaching and we are excited to announce that our famous December YOTA Month will happen this year. We would like to invite you to take part with a callsign with YOTA as the suffix, for example, HA6YOTA. The idea for this is to show the amateur radio hobby to young people and to encourage youngsters to be active on the amateur bands.

This is a great moment to show amateur radio to the world and to invite newcomers. Give a demonstration in a school, local club or scouting group, gather together with your friends, grab a pizza and make some QSOs or enjoy a great pile-up.
Feel free to make a QSO with the youngsters, they are happy to get some attention and exchange information. Licensed and unlicensed youth will be making QSOs, be aware this could be their first radio contact ever and give them a chance to experience a possible new hobby.

This year we will have new diplomas and rules!
Diplomas can be achieved by working our YOTA suffix special stations which are run by young operators throughout December! We changed a bit on the general rules; 2 points can be achieved per worked stations and 1 extra point for every valid (not dupe) QSO per band per mode!

This is of course not a contest, but getting many youngsters on air from many countries. Be helpful on the bands, maybe these young operators are just making their first ever contacts!

The aim is that YOTA stations are in general operated by young people, with the age of maximum 25 years. The event will take place from 1 December 2018 00:00 UTC till 31 December 2018 23:59 UTC.

Are you interested? Would you like to take part or want to know more about the new diploma rules? Find more information on https://events.ham-yota.com/

You can also find us on social media platforms, like #hamyota on Facebook and @hamyota Twitter. You can also join our Facebook group by facebook.com/groups/youngstersontheair where you can find up-to-date information during December.

October 2, 2018
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Invitation to the world’s largest annual youth event

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JOTA-JOTI
Two million young people from around the world are expected to take part in this year’s Jamboree-On-The-Air-Jamboree-On-The-Internet (JOTA-JOTI), the world’s biggest Scouting event.

During JOTA-JOTI, which takes place this year from 19-21 October. Scouts and Guides will encounter numerous different languages and cultures in a worldwide learning experience that lasts all day and well into the night.
JOTA-JOTI is designed to make participants feel that they are truly part of a global Movement. Whatever their age, religion, colour, ability, or disability, everyone can join the annual travel-free Jamboree wherever they are in the world. JOTA-JOTI is always held on the third weekend of October.

Scouts use amateur radio and the Internet, to connect with each other over the JOTA-JOTI weekend. The initiative helps to promote cultural awareness, develop tolerance, and enhance sharing, collaboration and teamwork.

Some 20,000 licensed amateur radio operators put 12,000 radio stations on the air with state-of-the-art technology. This offers an excellent opportunity for young radio amateurs to inspire young Scouts with the charms of radio techniques. And for Scouts to share their world with radio amateurs of (nearly) their own age.
This could lead to follow-up activities during the Youngster month in December and field days e.g.

SSTV badges
One of the main activities for Scouts in this year’s JOTA is to exchange badges (as electronic pictures) via SSTV. With the target to let them experience a different technique combined with a well-known Scout activity to swap badges. SSTV has become so much more accessible with a laptop or smartphone and some software, combining the radio and the digital world. It is in particular for this activity that young amateur radio operators can play an important role in making the connections and discovering the possibilities of SSTV.

Join in
We invite all young amateur radio operators to get in touch with the nearest Scout group and join in the JOTA-JOTI. Likewise, we invite all local Scout group leaders to contact the amateur radio clubs in their region to ask for support by young amateurs for their JOTA-JOTI event.

To assist with finding a Scout group, radio operators may contact the National JOTA-JOTI Coordinator in their country. Email addresses are available at:
https://www.jotajoti.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/NJC-2018-4.pdf

To assist with finding young radio amateurs, Scout groups leaders may contact the youth coordinator of your IARU member society:

Region 1 (Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and northern Asia):
https://iaru-r1.org/index.php/youth-coordinators
Region 2 (Americas):
Gustavo de Faria PT2ADM pt2adm(@)pobox.com
Region 3 (Australia, South-East Asia, Pacific Islands):
Jakkree Hantongkom HS1FVL jakkree(@)iaru-r3.org

About the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU)
The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) is an organization consisting of over 160 national amateur radio societies around the world. Created in Paris, France, the International Amateur Radio Union has been the watchdog and spokesman for the world Amateur Radio community since 1925. The IARU Constitution, last amended in 1989, organizes the Union into three Regional Organizations that correspond to the three radio regions of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The IARU represents the interests of the Amateur Radio Service worldwide to relevant international organizations, promoting the interests of amateur radio and seeking to protect and enhance its spectrum privileges. IARU is working for the future of amateur radio.

Youngsters On The Air (YOTA)
YOTA is an initiative of the Youth Working group of IARU Region 1. The program is focussing on bringing young radio amateurs together in events and on the air. YOTA is encouraging young radio amateurs to organize youth amateur radio events and to develop youth programs connected to amateur radio. Aim is to invite newcomers to the beautiful hobby and to show amateur radio to the world. Youngsters On The Air started in 2011 with an international youth summer camp and over the last years it developed to a program with activities spread over the entire year, on local, national and international level. Think about a yearly summer event with more then 30 international teams taking part, a sub-regional YOTA weekend or December YOTA month where many youth radio stations will become active on the air. This is just a bit of the YOTA program, it’s growing year by year! Join the YOTA train!

About the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM)
Scouting is one of the world’s leading educational youth movements, engaging millions of young people around the world to be active citizens and create positive change in their communities. Founded by Lord Baden-Powell in 1907, WOSM is a federation of 169 National Scout Organizations in a network of over 50 million Scouts in at least 224 countries and territories worldwide. The organisation is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

For more on JOTA-JOTI:
http://www.world-jotajoti.info

For more on YOTA:
http://www.ham-yota.com

 

Richard Middelkoop, PA3BAR
World JOTA-JOTI Organizer WOSM

Lisa Leenders, PA2LS
Youth WG Chair IARU R1

 

 

August 21, 2018
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YOTA South-Africa 2018, a start of something bigger

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Can you imagine? 23 teams, from all over Africa, Europe and USA travelled to South-Africa to take part in the annual Youngsters On The Air event. Yes, it did happen. 74 Young radio amateurs found their way to Gauteng, close to Johannesburg. This made it also happen that we had in total 7 African countries taking part, more then ever. 25 Persons had the opportunity to take part, after an intensive training, in a HAREC license exam. 20 Of them passed, great achievement, especially if you are aware that most of them don’t have the opportunity to take part in an exam at their home country.
Enough numbers for now, the youngsters took part in many activities in the week itself. A programme was made which was showing amateur radio in South-Africa with focus of train-the-trainer. SARL is making good progress on youth and amateur radio. Think about Hammies, Jeugland radio club or JOTA/JOTA.

Train-the-trainer? This was the first event with our renewed focus. There were several sessions were teams showed their ideas on how to develop amateur radio and attract newcomers to the amateur radio hobby. With this we are creating a snowball-effect, organizing similar activities back at home will make it happen that more persons can join YOTA or amateur radio. The teams all got homework to do, in 2 months we expect from them an article in their national amateur radio magazine about the event and a plan on starting their own youth program or organizing new amateur radio events. They all are free to come up with their own ideas, but got inspired the entire week.

A week has only 7 days, believe it or not, SARL made it happen to put more days in a week. Still being impressed about what we did in one week. There were many lectures and workshops, about contesting, DMR, Marconi and a demonstration of Marconi’s used equipment, a presentation on radio in wildlife (tracking animals) and much more. Starting with building own YAGI antenna’s and using this later to make satellite contacts, followed by a technical and hands-on SDR workshop. Working as a real project team to prepare a payload for a BACAR (Balloon Carrying Amateur Radio) balloon flight, we also launched the balloon, used the SDR and antenna to make contacts and gather data. After a good braai (South-African BBQ) all participants showed in a presentation the analysis of the recovered data of the payloads.

The youngsters did kit building with QRP labs, some of them couldn’t get enough and kept on building late in the night. There was a radio shack were ZS9YOTA was activated in modes as SSB, CW and FT8.
With so many cultures taking part in the event, we continued our yearly tradition of the intercultural evening. All teams brought food, drinks and even traditional clothes from their home-country.
Luckily the youth got the chance to see a bit of the South-African beauty, the group went on safari to see the big five! The farewell party, including an African drumming session, was a great last goodbye.

All this organized by SARL, the South African Radio League, under lead of Nico van Rensburg ZS6QL (President of SARL) and Koos Fick ZR6KF (Youth Coordinator of SARL). They didn’t do this all alone, they had a great group of volunteers helping them out to make this all happen. A special thanks to the entire organizing team and SARL!

This is only a part of everything the youngsters took part in. Do you want to read more or see more of the event?It’s all covered, have a look here.

A popular question, where will YOTA 2019 take place? Unfortunately we still did not receive any application. Are you interested in organizing an unforgettable event which will change the life of many young radio amateurs and be part of the future of amateur radio? Contact Lisa, PA2LS, Youth WG Chair IARU R1.

August 3, 2018
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YOTA @WRTC 2018 in Germany

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For the 8th World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) which took place in and around the german cities of Jessen and Wittenberg, the organisers gave the several youngsters the opportunity to attend the event as volunteers.

Due to this chance being offered on a fairly short notice and some even-shorter-notice cancellations of some participants this ended up with three youngsters attending as part of YOTA @ WRTC — Ljuba (YU5EEA), Sven (DJ4MX) and Markus (DL8GM).

Wednesday, the day of arrival, turned out to be slightly chaotic as we were trying to find each other in the crowded HQ hotel. The fact that we all arrived rather late didn’t really help with that either. On the bright side the hotel was full of radio amateurs (and most of them world’s top contesters at that!) so we could feel right at home. After finally having found each other (and the football match of course), we went to the youth hostel where our room was located. We stayed right at the famous Schlosskirche in Wittenberg within walking distance of the HQ hotel — with downtown Wittenberg being closed for cars walking was probably even faster than driving.

The next day we could finally start with the duties that we were given at the event. This consisted mostly of taking care of the DA0WRTC event station and helping operators that were unexperienced with either the radios or the software to get the special event station on the air. Of course, with many people being busy with their final preparations around that time, we had plenty of time here to make QSOs ourselves that day.
In the afternoon, we took a short walk over to the Exerzierhalle in Wittenberg where the opening ceremony was going to take place. There, we were tasked with various preparations for the ceremony and afterwards got the chance to attend it in person. As attendance was otherwise mostly limited to participants and referees, this was a rather exclusive opportunity for us.

On Friday, the day of the site drawing, we split up. Ljuba went with one of the Serbian referees, Goran (YT7AW), visiting several of the sites over the day. Sven and I went with the half-german Youth Team #3 (HA8RT and DK6SP) watching and helping with their setup, giving us an in-depth overview of how a WRTC station could look like. At this opportunity, I can also only repeat the compliments that the site teams have gotten over the whole event. The volunteers at “our” site were no exception, of course. Unfortunately, the site was about 1½ hours away from Wittenberg so we spent the whole day that way.

On the days of the competition itself our job mostly consisted of taking care of the HQ station, which was to be used by visitors trying to hunt the Y8 callsigns. However, we took the opportunity on Saturday morning to once again visit HA8RT and DK6SP for their final preparations until we (and everyone else at the site) had to wish them good luck and leave them to their own devices for the upcoming 24 hours of the contest.
After the contest was over on Sunday afternoon, participants and referees were slowly arriving at the hotel. As our station duty ended rather quickly after the contest we helped with collecting the participant’s logs before watching the football world cup finals together.

After all what happened over the past days, Monday was a rather slow day, consisting mostly of regaining some lost sleep and some preparations for the closing ceremony. Of course, we not only had the chance to attend the ceremony itself but also the dinner at the Stadthalle afterwards which provided us with a last chance to meet and take pictures with many of the participants, referees and other attendees. We also had the pleasure to meet up with the organizers who seemed rather relieved about the bulk of the event being over at this point. Many thanks again to Chris (DL1MBG – president of WRTC) and Micha (DL6MHW – vice president of WRTC) for making this unbelievable thing happen for us.

Overall, we had a great time at the event, and gained a lot of insight from both the participant as well as the organizers perspective for such a unique event. We sincerely thank the WRTC 2018 team for this opportunity, and hope for a similar chance at WRTC 2022 in Italy.

 

73 de Markus (DL8GM)

Teamleader YOTA @WRTC 2018