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YOTA Belgium & The Netherlands 2012

August 22, 2012
1

Visit to TU Eindhoven

By | YOTA Belgium & The Netherlands 2012 | No Comments

One of the days we went with a bus to Holland, to visit the Technical University of Eindhoven. The radio amateurs, also known as PI4TUE, made an interesting program. In the morning we were received all together and the day was introduced by Martin PA3DSC.

The group were divided in three smaller groups. All groups were visiting separate different rooms with other speakers. One of the subjects was visiting the radio station which is located very high on the 13th floor of the building with a beautiful view over the city of Eindhoven. We had a small tour through the station of PI4TUE. Besides contesting from this location here is much more located. Like PI4AA, which broadcast every month on HF and VHF radio related subjects. Or the system of PSK mail where we also had a lecture about.

One of the other very interesting lectures where about Satellites, by Bertus PE1KUH. He told us about all kind of satellites, it didn’t happen that much to get everyone quiet for such a long time.

Rein PA0R told us about PSK Mail. It is fascinating to send for example e-mails without the use of internet but with the use of radio waves. More information about that is on http://www.pskmail.org/

In the afternoon we went with the whole group to the EMC lab, had a tour over there which finished with a “show” of a Tesla Transformator.

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Lisa Leenders
PA2LS

August 21, 2012
1

Arduino Workshop

By | YOTA Belgium & The Netherlands 2012

One of the upcoming trends in electronics is Arduino. You can control a lot with an Arduino shield or chip. Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings.  Examples are blinking lights, controlling LCD screens, programming a robot or controlling your antenna rotator. This is still a bit from everything which is possible.

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

The group got in contact with this under the visit to ON7ERA and it was most appreciated!

All the youngsters did know the basics of electronics or more at the start of the workshop but Arduino was new for some of them. This workshop did focus on the beginning of programming and controlling components.

In the beginning we had a short lecture where the content was explained. Soon we all received a kit and started building by ourselves based on a schematic given to us by the crew. The first goal was to make a blinking LED. After not that long, all the youngsters had made it and was eager to continue with more advance projects.

Quite a lot of us where enjoying building with Arduino so much that we continued making more codes during the week when we had our spare time. Even after Youngsters On The Air, back home, some made more advanced projects with Arduino and are even controlling amplifiers and antennas with it.

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August 12, 2012
1

Foxhunting at ON7LR

By | YOTA Belgium & The Netherlands 2012

The YOTA group went to ON7LR which is also known as OT5A, the contest station. The area is an old stronghold place where there were a couple of massive castles surrounded by a big wall. Operating places were everywhere around the area let alone antennas! Some of them were on the top of the hill so they didn’t need high towers.

We had one YOTA station on the air from OT5A and it became quite popular. All the time one of us youngsters had a good pile-up to run!

In the afternoon we had an opportunity to find hidden foxes in surrounding forest. We managed to find them all in small groups which is of course more efficient as you have more eyes looking around! Some foxes were hidden in difficult places so we couldn’t find them easily, but nothing is impossible when fox receiver is in your hands. Every checkpoint transmitted one minute of different call sign in Morse code so it was possible to discern foxes from another.

During the sunset we had barbecued meal straight from the grill. That definitely was a nice way to end the day!

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