Train the Trainer – Finland – April 2021

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In this edition of Train the Trainer, our aim was to get ideas for all the societies to use. Therefore the main questions were made in the way that the societies answering them would give as many ideas as possible, so other societies could benefit from them and make their own activities! Answering in this particular report are by representative(s) of team Finland


Main Questions:

What kind of activities you have found the most succesfull during Covid? If you have not held any activities, what kind of activities would you like to have?

The most successful activities have been skeds and social media activity for youngsters. We also participated in an online hobby fair which was a new way of introducing our hobby to a new audience. We participated with a video. (which you can find from the bottom of the page)

How have you been able to get youngsters to communicate during Covid? (Telegram groups, Skype calls, etc.)

We have a WhatsApp chat and it has been active throughout the pandemic. We have been thinking of ways to improve activity in the group like starting conversations and sending news types of messages. The chat group is also one way of informing the youngsters about our activities.

Other Questions:

What are your plans for the spring?

For spring and summer we are planning to have more regular skeds and to activate our social media more often. We have also started to plan for youth activities at SRAL summer camp. We also have a date and place for a youth camp scheduled for September.

We have planned a newsletter to be sent out to our society’s youth members. The idea for a newsletter came from the realization that still not all of the youth members know or participate in our youth activities. In the newsletter, we are going to introduce our youth committee, social media, and upcoming events. 

We also try to post on our blog regularly about youth activities and YOTA news. The blog posts are printed in our society’s magazine. That’s also a way for us to show people there are youth activities and youth work at the moment. 

Currently, we are also looking for a new youth committee member to our team.

What kind of problems are you facing with youth work in your member society? Do you need any help with it?

In a national society, the change of ways to do youth work, marketing, and getting new ideas and projects started is hard and slow. Especially with youth involved, we need to follow the current trends. Social media as a tool is one example of that.   

Many people still don’t recognize YOTA and youth work being done.

 

Anything else you want to share? / Ideas or feedback for the future of TTT?

The role of YOTA is big during these times as providing events and leading the way. Not all societies have the resources and people to do youth work. For many people organizing online activities and social media is still a big challenge. 

From our experience in Finland, youth work needs to be part of the top priority in every society. Youth is the future.

 

 

 


If you need to contact the people answering this report, or have anything to ask about Train the Trainer, please contact trainthetrainer@ham-yota.com

Train the Trainer report – Iceland – April 2021

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In this edition of Train the Trainer, our aim was to get ideas for all the societies to use. Therefore the main questions were made in the way that the societies answering them would give as many ideas as possible, so other societies could benefit from them and make their own activities! Answering in this particular report are by representative(s) of team Iceland


Main Questions:

What kind of activities you have found the most succesfull during Covid? If you have not held any activities, what kind of activities would you like to have?

I’d (TF2EQ) love to do a collaboration with the Icelandic Astronomy Club on presenting the communications / technology used with both telescopes and satellites (could do a O-100 “show and tell”) to children or even university students.

 What tips would you like to give to other societies when arranging activities during Covid? Describe as good as you can so others can benefit the most from your answer!

Keep your youngsters communicating with each other with meetings on certain time intervals

How have you been able to get youngsters to communicate during Covid? (Telegram groups, Skype calls, etc.)

Had some contacts on air during DYM but also on Telegram and through the phone with some NOTA friends.

Other Questions:

What are your plans for the spring?

No plans for the spring.

What kind of problems are you facing with youth work in your member society? Do you need any help with it?

No problems, lots of support, don’t have time to rally up youngsters to take exams since the first one is scheduled hopefully for next autumn.


If you need to contact the people answering this report, or have anything to ask about Train the Trainer, please contact trainthetrainer@ham-yota.com

Train the Trainer report – Czech Republic – April 2021

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In this edition of Train the Trainer, our aim was to get ideas for all the societies to use. Therefore the main questions were made in the way that the societies answering them would give as many ideas as possible, so other societies could benefit from them and make their own activities! Answering in this particular report are by representative(s) of team Czech Republic


Main Questions:

What kind of activities you have found the most successful during Covid? If you have not held any activities, what kind of activities would you like to have?

We didn’t held any activities (or at least I don’t know about them). I think that the very first activity would be a weekend together, to invite new young radio amateurs. Of course, when the situation calms down, we would like to organize other KOTA activities.

 What tips would you like to give to other societies when arranging activities during Covid? Describe as good as you can so others can benefit the most from your answer!

I think the most important thing is to do something! Have a Skype meeting, if possible meet in person. The most important thing is to support young people and spend time together.

How have you been able to get youngsters to communicate during Covid? (Telegram groups, Skype calls, etc.)

We have a Facebook group, so whatever important stuff is going on, we post there. The truth is that there are not many of us (youngsters), so in most cases we keep in touch mainly in pairs and write to each other privately.

Other Questions:

What are your plans for the spring?

So far, none

What kind of problems are you facing with youth work in your member society? Do you need any help with it?

I would say that the main problem is to keep young people aged 15-25 involved in the hobby. If we’re active, it’s mainly because we are part of the CRC Youth Committee. And at the moment we are mainly focusing on the kids and we are organising Kids On The Air activities together, which have proved to be very beneficial so far. We believe that if we attract this age group, it will not be a problem to organise YOTA activities later on.


If you need to contact the people answering this report, or have anything to ask about Train the Trainer, please contact trainthetrainer@ham-yota.com

Train the Trainer report – Lithuania – April 2021

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In this edition of Train the Trainer, our aim was to get ideas for all the societies to use. Therefore the main questions were made in the way that the societies answering them would give as many ideas as possible, so other societies could benefit from them and make their own activities! Answering in this particular report are by representative(s) of team Lithuania


Main Questions:

What kind of activities you have found the most succesfull during Covid? If you have not held any activities, what kind of activities would you like to have?

My colleagues in the capital city managed to launch a balloon with an APRS/WSPR tracker several times (https://www.facebook.com/kelionebalionu) and that seemed to be quite an atractive activity for fellow hams and most importantly – non hams.

 What tips would you like to give to other societies when arranging activities during Covid? Describe as good as you can so others can benefit the most from your answer!

Since people stay indoors during covid, I believe that a great way to keep interest of society members are online projects that can be tracked/interacted with. As an example: balloon satelites. They can be tracked, and it is interesting to see where it went and it can make others interested to launch their own satelite.

How have you been able to get youngsters to communicate during Covid? (Telegram groups, Skype calls, etc.)

Our local youngsters telegram group became more active during covid, it almost trippled it’s member’s count.

Other Questions:

What are your plans for the spring?

Since going outside is fun, I believe we’ll have a lot more SOTA activations and satelite activity. Possibly many will go outside to upgrade/maintain their antenna set-ups.

What kind of problems are you facing with youth work in your member society? Do you need any help with it?

Personally, I live far away from many young hams so doing projects together is not possible. However during normal circumstances (Not under covid lockdown), many come back to bigger cities to study and can do projects together.


If you need to contact the people answering this report, or have anything to ask about Train the Trainer, please contact trainthetrainer@ham-yota.com

Train the Trainer report – North Macedonia – April 2021

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In this edition of Train the Trainer, our aim was to get ideas for all the societies to use. Therefore the main questions were made in the way that the societies answering them would give as many ideas as possible, so other societies could benefit from them and make their own activities! Answering in this particular report are by representative(s) of team North Macedonia.


Main Questions:

How have you been able to get youngsters to communicate during Covid? (Telegram groups, Skype calls, etc.)

FB groups and chats mostly

Other Questions:

What are your plans for the spring?

Some DX on 160m

What kind of problems are you facing with youth work in your member society? Do you need any help with it?

Not enough founding


If you need to contact the people answering this report, or have anything to ask about Train the Trainer, please contact trainthetrainer@ham-yota.com

YOTA Progress in the Americas – April 2021

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Neil Rapp, WB9VPG – Camp Director
Sterling Mann, N0SSC – IARU Region 2 Youth Liaison

YOTA Camp

A week long camp was organized for the Americas (Region 2) to take place in 2020. Due to the pandemic, this camp had to be postponed until 2021. Currently, we are on track to host the event during the scheduled dates, July 11-16, 2021. The camp will take place at the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting in West Chester Township, Ohio, USA. COVID-19 safety protocols will be in place. We will continue to evaluate the COVID-19 situation, and adjust accordingly. If we find that we can’t host the camp that week, it will be postponed until 2022. Our core staff has been vaccinated, as well as most (if not all) of our volunteers. W8Y will be the special event callsign for the camp. We have room for 30 campers at the event, and most of those spots have been filled. Topics that will be included will be: contesting, kit building, D-STAR, APRS and WSPR with high altitude balloons, satellite operation, fox-oring, and antenna building. We also have VHF sprints planned for a day trip to Kings Island Amusement Park. We are in line to possibly take part in an ARISS contact during the week as well.

Virtual YOTA Day

Since the camp was postponed for 2020, we took one day out of the week when the camp was supposed to happen to gather as many campers as possible together on Zoom. We also streamed it on YouTube for anyone who cared to watch. Some of our workshop leaders made presentations and hosted activities that could all be done at home without a radio, such as SDR direction finding, copying callsigns out of a pileup recording, and using WebSDR to find stations around the world. The day also provided a preview of some activities that would take place during the 2021 camp, such as satellite operation basics. We gave away prizes from DX Engineering, Heil Sound, and R&L Electronics including an ICOM IC-7300 from R&L.

YOTA Special Event

Also during the week that the camp was scheduled to take place in 2020, we had a special event station using the W8Y callsign. Youth operators took shifts throughout the week from their home or remote stations. Marty Sullaway, NN1C organized the event, managed the logs, and uploaded to LoTW. Kees Van Oosbree, W0AAE, began serving as our paper QSL manager during this event.

Field Day Station

Jay, K4ZLE, offered up a very nice remote station in Ohio to use during Field Day 2020. Since the callsign W8Y was already assigned for that week, we used that callsign on the remote station. This allowed for youth to operate even though they may not have antennas or a radio at home. We also offered the club entry category “Youth on the Air” to try to gather as many youth points as possible during Field Day.

December YOTA Month

We stepped up our involvement in December YOTA month in 2019 and 2020. Previously, only 1 station participated. We were able to use 4 special event callsigns that spell YOTA… K8Y, K8O, K8T, and K8A. These callsigns were shared on a daily schedule among 24 operators, all age 25 or younger. We made 14,699 contacts during the month. Bryant Rascoll, KG5HVO served in his second year as our region YOTA month coordinator. We also contributed to the QSL card fund for DYM.

Youth Contesting Program

YCP is operated by YARC, the Young Amateurs Radio Club. Due to the pandemic, there was no activity in YCP this year.

Bi-Weekly IARU Region 2 YOTA Zoom Conferences

Along with the long-awaited YOTA region 2 camp finally occurring this year (if all goes well), YOTA-R2 has also been starting other activities inspired by YOTA Region 1.
The newly appointed IARU R2 Youth Liaison’s primary effort has been a campaign to inspire, research, and facilitate more youth radio activity and general awareness throughout the member societies of IARU R2. The main activity has been a regular bi-weekly meeting between youth leaders across the American continents and the Caribbean. The roster is up to over 40 like-minded folks who realize the lack of youth in amateur radio and the challenges of bringing it to them, who also have tons of experiences trying to meet the challenges, both successes and failures.
The meetings are intended to both inform a working group of the cultural, social, and economic differences across R2, as well as inspire youth leaders to form their own youth communities that gravitate towards common cultures and languages.

Other Activities

YOTA R2 is also frequently collaborating with R1, especially with the upcoming on-air event, and some more contest-related innovations to come.
Even though almost 5 years have passed since it’s founders first went to YOTA Camp in Austria, YOTA R2 is still in a stage of infancy compared to YOTA R1. Ironically, though unsurprisingly, we’ve had more impact on older demographic of hams than younger, which may be a blessing in disguise: it’s good that our elders have awareness of the need for young blood in our hobby.

 

 

 

 


If you have anything to ask about Train the Trainer, please contact trainthetrainer@ham-yota.com

YOTA Subregional Camp Hungary – Postponed to 2022

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Press Release by
IARU Region 1 Youth Working Group

Wednesday, 21.04.2021

The IARU Region 1 Youth Working Group has to announce the following news.

The YOTA subregional camp in Hungary, which had already been postponed to 2021 last year, has to be postponed once again to 2022 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

This difficult decision was made together with MRASZ officials (Hungarian Amateur Radio Society) following the IARU-R1-wide COVID-19 event cancellation policy (see below).

The IARU Region 1 secretary has been informed about this decision on Wednesday, 21.04.2021.

We, the IARU Region 1 Youth Working Group, will keep you updated on any news regarding upcoming in-person events.

 

Stay safe around the world and hope to see you again in 2022.

 


73

Philipp, DK6SP                                                       Markus, DL8GM

Chair                                                                         Vice-Chair
IARU R1 Youth WG                                               IARU R1 Youth WG

 

IARU Region 1 COVID-19 event cancellation policy (01.03.2021):

The position on the COVID pandemic remains serious and unpredictable. Governments everywhere struggle with balancing the health of their economies with the health of their populations. The vaccine roll-out seems likely to take most of this year and even then, the impact of mutant strains of the virus and national quarantine requirements are difficult to predict.

IARU Region 1 has a number of in-person events planned for 2021 in the Youth, ARDF and HST areas, as well as the planned Workshop for Member Societies. It is not yet certain whether it will be possible to run these events as scheduled.

IARU Region 1 will adopt the following approach:

Youth events scheduled before end-June will not take place. These events make social distancing difficult and we do not believe it will be possible for them to take place.  Other 2021 events will remain in the calendar for the time being. We will review the forecast evolution of the pandemic sufficiently prior to each event and make an announcement about whether it will take place.  Generally this will be four months prior to the scheduled date. Those planning to attend should thus have sufficient time to make the necessary bookings and travel arrangements.

IARU Region 1’s intent is to ensure that any events which take place do so in an environment which respects national requirements for pandemic control and which does not place at risk the health and well-being of those participating.  

 

Download the press release here:

Press_Release_IARU_R1_Youth_WG_20210421

YOTA Summer Camp Croatia – Postponed to 2022

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Press Release by
IARU Region 1 Youth Working Group

Sunday, 18.04.2021

The IARU Region 1 Youth Working Group has to announce the following news.

The YOTA summer camp Croatia, which had already been postponed to 2021 last year, has to be postponed once again to 2022 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

This difficult decision was made together with HRS officials (Croatian Amateur Radio Society) following the IARU-R1-wide COVID-19 event cancellation policy (see below).

The IARU Region 1 secretary has been informed about this decision on Sunday, 18.04.2021.

We, the IARU Region 1 Youth Working Group, will keep you updated on any news regarding upcoming in-person events.

 

Stay safe around the world and hope to see you again in 2022.

 


73

Philipp, DK6SP                                                          Markus, DL8GM

Chair                                                                          Vice-Chair
IARU R1 Youth WG                                                  IARU R1 Youth WG

 

IARU Region 1 COVID-19 event cancellation policy (01.03.2021):

The position on the COVID pandemic remains serious and unpredictable. Governments everywhere struggle with balancing the health of their economies with the health of their populations. The vaccine roll-out seems likely to take most of this year and even then, the impact of mutant strains of the virus and national quarantine requirements are difficult to predict.

IARU Region 1 has a number of in-person events planned for 2021 in the Youth, ARDF and HST areas, as well as the planned Workshop for Member Societies. It is not yet certain whether it will be possible to run these events as scheduled.

IARU Region 1 will adopt the following approach:

Youth events scheduled before end-June will not take place. These events make social distancing difficult and we do not believe it will be possible for them to take place.  Other 2021 events will remain in the calendar for the time being. We will review the forecast evolution of the pandemic sufficiently prior to each event and make an announcement about whether it will take place.  Generally this will be four months prior to the scheduled date. Those planning to attend should thus have sufficient time to make the necessary bookings and travel arrangements.

IARU Region 1’s intent is to ensure that any events which take place do so in an environment which respects national requirements for pandemic control and which does not place at risk the health and well-being of those participating.  

 

Download the press release here:

Press_Release_IARU_R1_Youth_WG_20210418

YOTA Online – Session #12 “The end … but a new beginning!”

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Press Release by Youngsters On The Air
Tuesday, 13.04.2021

Are you ready for our upcoming and last YOTA Online session already?
Did you set your alarms for Thursday, 29.04.20211800 UTC?

In this newest episode the team will present the main topic “The end … but a new beginning!“. This time we will give you some insights on our recent YOTA Online sessions, talk about our future plans with this and other upcoming projects. Further we will focus on the ongoing pandemic problematic and its possibilities. Join this newest and last YOTA Online session. Moreover, we will also have a special prize draw after you solved our new riddle live on the show. We will give away an ICOM HF and one V/UHF radio and many more things. So, stay tuned, check out our social media channels for any updates and be excited!

WHAT IS YOTA ONLINE?
The Youth Working Group within the IARU Region 1 created a new program called “YOTA online”. In these monthly gatherings we will try to bring the YOTA feeling towards the online community and spread the word that there is youth in ham radio. A YOTA team consisting of active youngsters will present different topics, while answering questions from the community. There will also be a section where different recent YOTA event hosts will be able to present the highlights, while also giving participants the opportunity to share stories. These sessions are also interesting if you want to learn more about organizing such amateur radio events for young people. This will be followed by a Q&A session with the group presenting. At the end of the event we will also do a prize raffle including a little riddle amongst all participants.


WHERE WILL IT BE HELD?
We will be streaming live again on our Youtube, Facebook and Twitch channels.

Here are the links to our channels.
Youtube – https://www.youtube.com/hamyota
Twitch – https://www.twitch.tv/hamyota
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/hamyota

QUESTIONS?
If you have questions while the event takes place do not hesitate to ask them.
Please keep in mind that we will be monitoring only the chats on Facebook, Youtube and Twitch while we are streaming live.
All other comments will be answered afterwards for sure.

RE-WATCH PREVIOUS EPISODES
If you missed earlier episodes or just want to watch a topic again it is very easy.
Just visit our Youtube Channel and select what you want to see.

We hope to welcome you on the show!

Download the Press Release here:

Press_Release_YOTA_online_20210413

_______________________________

Youngsters On The Air is an initiative by the IARU Region 1

Get in contact with us at pr@ham-yota.com

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