Nordics On The Air Activation 2020

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What?

As you may well know, NOTA Norway was scheduled to be held in the upcoming weekend from 10.-13.04. The event was postponed/canceled until further notice because of the COVID-19. On the NOTA camp, there would have been two HF-stations with the callsign LA1YOTA spreading the voice of youth all around the world. 

Even though NOTA is not going to happen during this Easter, we still want to unite as Nordics and give other amateur radio operators a chance to talk with us. As of this, we will be having NOTA activation skeds during the upcoming weekend! 

When?

Following stations will be on the air on the written days: 

  • LA1YOTA on Friday 10th

  • OH2YOTA on Saturday 11th

  • SK8YOTA on Sunday 12th

  • TF3YOTA on Monday 13th

 

The stations will be on HF on told days in variable times depending on the operator. We will be reporting about the exact times and frequencies on our social media’s @hamyota_official and @nordicsontheair as well as Youngsters On The Air Telegram-group. 

Awards!

For this event, we will not be sending any QSL-cards. Instead, we will have an award system with a limited amount of awards. More info coming later.

Youth Contest Program 2020 – LX7I + LX20I

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Report by YCP team member Tom (F4HWS):

How the ARRL DX SSB 2020 has been managed by youngsters at LX7I ?

Arriving in the farm, you are already excited by everything you see, stacks, TX, amp, anything you see motivates you a lot to enjoy the upcoming contest by doing your best.

This year was special, we were only two, Simon DL3SPS (first time at LX7I) and me, Tom F4HWS (from the 2019 YCP team!).

Because we were two, we reflected with Phillipe LX2A about the category we should enter.
The choice was quick, I would enter in SOHP40 signing as LX20I while Simon would be SOLP20 signing as LX7I.

I already said this last year, but it was one more time, the first time for me as SOSB. Because I really enjoy contesting, I looked for previous logs, previous SOHP40 ops., and previous results, in mind that in 2019 as M2 we managed to put 900 US stations on 40 in the log.

The contest itself :

At 0000 UTC, I started the contest, signing as LX20I, a special call for the 20 years anniversary of the station. Everything was great, rates were good with 200 Qs/h during the two first hours but limiting myself to go faster to avoid wrong spots and tons of dupes (seen spots as LX0I-LX2CI-LX2ZI).

At 0900 Saturday I decided to have a nap with a satisfying number of 923 Qs in the log and 54 mults. The second night was interesting, always up 7175 to get a maximum of novices in the log, even if signals were very light, the low level of noise and the tremendous propagation conditions allowed me to run few hours at 160 Qs/h without any break time, what a pleasure!

On the Sunday morning 2054 Qs were in the log, with 62 mults, fun night with sometimes hard fight with other big guns to keep my frequency clear, with always a win from the LX one, secret weapon hi.

Monday morning at 0000 UTC, LX20I end the contest with 2384 Qs (206 dupes, not included) and 62 mults. I’m pretty satisfied. During the contest even if the first place was not my goal, I had the feeling that it was not very far. It was a very interesting but hard fight against CR6T and I4VEQ, finding them on the band and listening to a pile that I couldn’t hear, especially in the morning with CR6T. After the claimed, I saw myself at the rank #2, between CR6T and I4VEQ, congrats to them for this intense run 😊.

Around the contest :

Having some extra time behind the TX giving LX to YV, KP, CM, PJ, LU, JA, and VK was cool! When you’re not in the shack, you discuss with locals and teammate Simon who was not a contester before, but he managed to put around 480 US guys in the log! We spoke during break time when he was not on the air and I was not sleeping. That represents lots of nice moments.

Around the contest, there was also support from Phillipe LX2A and other awesome club members. Speaking with them about the club, the ham activity in the area, and of course, talking with Phillipe about contesting, contests experiences and station evolution puts you lots of stars in the eyes!

To finish, I strongly recommend to those who already had a few experiences in their area, to those who don’t have access in their country to some big stations and want to compete from that kind of place, to apply asap to be the next YCP contesters!

CU in the next, LX20I op. Tom F4HWS.

Cancelled – IARU R3 Summer Camp, Subregional Camp HA, YCP at EC2DX

By | Community Written, Hungary 2020, Publication, Youth Contesting Program | No Comments

Unfortunately, we have to announce more cancellations of upcoming YOTA events due to COVID-19 also known as Corona-Virus.

This includes the upcoming IARU Region 3 Summer Camp in Thailand, the YOTA Subregional Camp in Hungary as well as the Youth Contest Program at EC2DX in Spain.

The mentioned events are all postponed to a later moment already when spreading of the virus calms down.
Participants will be directly contacted by the organizers.


Currently cancelled YOTA Events:

  • BOTA Subregional Camp in Serbia
  • NOTA Subregional Camp in Norway
  • Subregional Camp in Hungary
  • IARU Region 3 Summer Camp in Thailand
  • YCP at 9A1A in Croatia
  • YCP at EC2DX in Spain

Info:
We are in close contact with the organizers to check possibilities to postpone these youth events to a later date!


Thanks for your understanding and stay safe at your homes around the world!

73 de YOTA Staff

Cancelled — YCP at 9A1A, NOTA and BOTA 2020

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Unfortunately, we have to announce the cancellation of the upcoming Youth Contest Program at 9A1A contest station in Croatia, the Nordics On The Air Sub-regional camp in Norway  and the Balkans On The Air Sub-regional camp in Serbia due to COVID-19 virus.
The mentioned events might be postponed to a later moment when spreading of the virus calms down.
Participants will be directly contacted by the organizers.

Subregional YOTA Camp Hungary 2020

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Hungary 2020 – a YOTA sub-regional ham camp – open for all youngsters

Following many years of participation in YOTA programs, this time Hungarian youngsters are going to host a subregional camp, supported by MRASZ, Hungarian Radio Amateur Society and several well-known local hams. We are enthusiastic and hopeful about this event held in South-West Hungary, to where we would like to invite Central and Eastern European youngsters to participate, meet each other and enjoy a long weekend full of ham radio related programs in a hospitable, close-to-nature environment.

Who?

If you’re 15–25 years old and interested in amateur radio, you are welcome to this event. Newcomers to radio hobby are invited as well as more experienced youngsters such as traditional ham operators, ARDF or HST participants. We only ask you to be a member of one of the IARU member societies.

When?

Just at the beginning of the summer season: 11-15 June 2020.

Where?

Venue​: Cseresznyéskert Erdei Iskola https://www.facebook.com/cseresznyeskerterdeiiskola/
Location​: https://goo.gl/maps/J3DsrsuSTH7EQzwt9
Coordinates: 46.6396722N, 18.7895224E

QRA: JN96JP43

Getting to the site​: Car, or public transport buses. If coming by public transport, there will be local hams waiting for arriving participants ​ preferably in Budapest​and helping to find the regional bus station from where there are regular buses to the city of Paks. From Paks, we can take participants to the venue.

Activities, program

We are working on the full program right now, but we can say it’s going to be exciting. It will include interesting workshops and tests, continuous operation on 2 HF, 1 VHF and 1SAT stations, the possibility of learning basics of morse code in 3 days, and visiting the Paks Nuclear Power Plant.
In case of early arrival / late departure please send us a notification. It is possible to spend a night at MRASZ HQ guest rooms, in Budapest.

Costs

Most of the event is funded by IARU R1 and the MRASZ funds. We are asking 30 EUR from each participant. Accommodation, 3 meals a day and activities are all covered.

How to apply?

You can apply via the following link: https://forms.gle/WHpkC641EoZsh8Es6 until 15 April 2020. If you register for the event, you will automatically receive bulletins after the deadline and invitation to a Telegram group where we can discuss questions and share more information.

YOTA Summer Camp 2020 in Croatia

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YOTA Croatia logo

HRS’s most significant project of the past few years, YOTA (Youngsters On The Air) Camp, will be held 8th- 15th August 2020 in Karlovac.

Preparations officially began on 20th January with a meeting in Karlovac. The Coordination Committee as well as workshop leaders and other project associates. All participants visited the Bedem Hostel (student centre), which offers all amenities and comfort for such an event. Eighty young people, aged 14-26, from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East are expected to attend the YOTA camp. Attendees will be staying at the hostel in double and triple rooms.

During their stay, 9 workshops will be organized: kit building, ARDF, antenna fabrication, antenna testing, telegraphy, programming, RCSCS, satellite and digital communications.

The event will be marked by a special callsign 9A20YOTA with which the youngsters will be able to operate 24/7.

Two excursions are planned: one to the island of Krk and Rijeka, which is the European Capital of Culture this year, and the other to Zagreb to visit the Technical Museum, enjoy some sightseeing and visit Sljeme the highest peak of the Medvednica mountain.

Today we present the final logo that will represent this significant project in the HRSs youth efforts as well as several social media platforms to serve as a means to share youth activity in Croatia not just for this project but for many more to come.

Train the Trainer report – Germany – January 2020

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TTT Report Germany – January 2020

Main focus since the last report was the December YOTA month DYM.

During december a lot of youngsters participated. Our callsign DH0YOTA was used by youngsters operating on their own as well as youth groups operating all together!

The organisation for the time slots was the same as last year. To coordinate the time slots for the callsign, we used a calendar, where everyone can see which time slots (for the whole december) are still available and which are already taken. All interested youngster can easily book an available time slot by sending an online reservation inquiry which is then approved by the callsign coordinator. For spontaneous arrangement of non-booked timeslots we created a Telegram group with all youngsters who registered for a timeslot. For all taken slots you can see in the calender by whom this time slot is taken. This entails that youngsters can arrange shifting if it is necessary. Especially for those who just have limited or rarely access to a station this can be pretty helpful.

Specially youngsters often don‘t have a good opportunity for operating since they might not have their own station. We therefore created a new option for youngsters to help them finding a station. We set up a map on the DARC website and invited clubstations as well as private owners to open their station for youngsters. These stations were then visible on the map such that youngsters can check out if there is a station close to them. Further arrangement (e.g. date and time) was then managed by the youngster and station owner privately.

Besides the DYM we are happy to have opportunies for german youngsters to take part in youth camps. At Winter YOTA Camp in PA we had a german team of six youngsters participating. Probably we will have german youngsters participating on other subreginal camps, depending on the available places for non-regional youth. Nevertheless, we have youngsters currently planning a small sub-national camp. We hope that with more youngsters participating in camps, we will also be able to get more youngsters motivated to plan and organise their own small camp.

Questions, comments or ideas? Feel free to contact us also via ham-yota@darc.de

73 de YOTA team DL

 

Train the Trainer report – Slovakia – January 2020

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Since the last report in October 2019, nothing abnormal have happened as compared to the winter time the previous years, but still a lot of activities have been going on. There is an ongoing course organised by the university radio-club OM3KFF and increasing number of contest activities of the radio-club OM3KII.
 
The course is being very successful this year; many of the attendees are going to undertake exams in a few months. The attendees are also becoming more and more active and initiative in the ham-radio activities. They participated in YOTA December, which shows that during the course they got hold of particular skills to be able to handle pile-ups that are very usual when using our special callsign OM19YOTA. We are very happy about the number of the beginners that are continuing to show interest in ham-radio and hope that the course the next year will be even more successful.
 
Regarding YOTA December, youngsters were mostly active from the radio-clubs OM3KII and OM3KFF, there was only a few active solo youngsters for unknown reasons. However, all together we managed to make 2568 QSOs, which is a decent number considering the size of our country. December was a fun month, broadcasting from the radio-club stations brought together many friends and we also managed to record moments where during contests there were only youngsters present on the station. This showed the beauty of youngsters guiding youngsters.
 
73 de OM1DP

Train the Trainer report – Czech Republic – January 2020

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At the beginning of participating OK Team at YOTA summer camps, we always get great support from our member society –  CRC. Not only that, since 2017 we have had the Youth Committee and in April 2019 board of CRC co-opted two new members, participants in previous YOTA camps.

Recently we have organized weekend gatherings where we took part in the Yota December activity. It was two days and nights from 06.12. to 08.12.2019. It was in the Moravian part of the Czechia in Benešov near Boskovice. Finally, 6 licensed amateurs and 3 children took part. We’re cqing from the club station OK2R under OL19YOTA. The conditions weren’t the best and the number of 325 QSOs corresponded. It sums to the previous QSO made by single members to a total count of 2570 QSOs.

Thereafter we organized YOTA Subregional camp, we decided that we would like to focus on kids.  The situation in the Czech Republic is more or less the same ar in previous years. We focused a lot of our energy on youngsters but the results aren’t as we assumed. A lot of youngsters spending their time in the leisure technics’ clubs, however, afterward they don’t continue anymore. But with kids, it’s completely different. If you get them interested in the very begging of choosing how they want to spend their free time, they will continue then. So, for now, it’s the main of the topic of Youth Committee to get Kids On The Air.