In the last 2 months important achievements were made for youth in Austria. The support from our society OEVSV has greatly increased. After we put lots of effort into convincing them of the importance of youth.

At the general assembly of the society, youngsters were present to put pressure on the representatives of each region of Austria. They all agreed to organise youth activities with their regional youth coordinators and support the youngsters already in their regions with any activities they want to organise. Additionally, the youth coordinator on the national level secured a budget specifically for youth activities. It shows that slowly the OMs are realising that youth is the way forward.

Some other important achievements were also made:

There will be an OEVSV online learning platform so that youngsters can learn for their license exams online Read more….

At the beginning of 2019 the Youngsters in Austria were working together on some international YOTA projects, for example the YOTA online shop where you can buy clothes and accessories with YOTA branding. Of course the profits go to support YOTA projects such as the summer camp. Furthermore we were meeting to plan events in the summer months. Most of our plans are for the summer holiday period for 2 reasons. Firstly the weather makes outdoor activities much more enjoyable so it is possible to organise camping trips and field days for example. Furthermore  most youngsters are still at school or university so in the holidays they have time and are not worrying about exams and the like. We have some big plans, however we can’t talk about them just yet. Read more….

The last two months were filled with very important events for youngsters in Austria. Although we did not organise any special meetings or activities in this period we still achieved a lot to make it easier to organise events in the future. The OEVSV (the Austrian amateur radio society) held it’s annual meeting where all the regions and different sections were present and discussed the next year, especially the budget. We made sure that youth was an important point on the agenda. Some of the young members were present to show what we had achieved during the last year and what we were planning on doing in 2019. Many of the older generation OMs did not realise how much youth work is going on and that it is worth doing. Sadly some older club members still think that youth work is not necessary and should not be supported. However we also have very strong support from other club members who are very supportive of our plans. Read more….

After seeing posts about the YCP at DM9EE I immediately applied, eager to be able to take part in the CQWW 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.

  Read more….

Following the YOTA camp in South Africa, the Austrian team was very enthusiastic and highly motivated to get more youngsters involved in ham radio. After we discussed the best approaches to the problems we faced and all the things we had learned during the TTT sessions in South Africa, we started discussing our plans with the OEVSV Youth Coordinator, OE3FTA, the President, OE3MZC, and other members of our society. The support we received was very large and the leadership of the society is equally as convinced as we are that it is necessary to increase the number of young members.

At the YOTA TTT sessions we laid out a very simple plan which consists of three stages:

1. 1. Build up a network of existing youngsters

1. 1. With this group “re-activate” youngsters which were licensed but then lost interest

1. With this larger group of youngsters work to get completely new members

Read more….