Since 2013 Finland has taken part in December YOTA month, and this year wasn’t an exception. The first DYM activity in Finland for 2019 was already on the first day of the month; on the 1st of December, when the radio club of the scout district of Southwest Finland, OH1AS started the activity as a part of their activity weekend in Liesan maja, Lieto. About a dozen of young radio scouts were on air. What a great start to DYM!

The next weekend, from 5th to 8th of December, was the turn for the activity weekend “workkimisviikonloppu” organized by SRAL’s youth team. This was the 3rd time the weekend was held at the OH5Z contest station. The participant amount for the weekend was 12, a little less than the year before. The weekend included making QSOs, a presentation about remote stations and a lot more! Read more

Finland has been represented at YOTA summer camps since 2012. This time the team consisted of four people: Anu OH6ME as a team leader accompanied by Otava OH3OT, Tia OH3TIA, and Mikael OH3UAF. Only Anu had been at YOTA summer camp before, so it made a nice first camp for the others. And what a camp it was!

Before the camp, we had high expectations for it, as the other youngsters in Finland had only told good things about the past camps. We knew the week would be about meeting new people, having a great time among our hobby while learning a lot of new things! Now, after the camp, I think we all can say that we were most sincerely right!

Learning at the camp was fun! The technical side was made easy from the start, nothing too difficult. Even us who had never been that much in contact with antenna building enjoyed the workshops. Read more

After the last Train The Trainer report we have done a lot for the ham radio youth – main focus on the camp Nordics On The air. The camp was held 19.-22.4.2019 in Leirisalo in Southern Finland. With the help of a total of 14 organizers we made it possible for 32 international youngsters to have an amazing time creating networks across borders while participating in amateur radio related activities. You can read more about the camp from the news here at ham-yota.com.

A lot of the Finnish Youth team’s time this year has been used for planning NOTA, but we have also remembered the coming summer and autumn. We will have a pre-planned youth meet in SRAL’s summer camp and the traditional Polar camp for Finnish youngsters will be re-organized in October. Not to forget the annual DYM operating weekend in December.  Read more

Next two months won’t only make a big difference for young Finnish hams, but it will also be a step ahead for whole Nordic European amateur radio community! As we have mentioned before in December Train The Trainer report, we are organising a sub-regional YOTA-camp, NOTA (Nordics On The Air) In Finland.

The camp, which was held in Sweden last year, will happen in Southern Finland this April from 19th to 22nd. The Programme of the event will be similar to YOTA camps including, for example, beginner-friendly radio orienteering, working from OH2YOTA, popular intercultural evening and of course, sauna, the Finnish way of having conversations!

Even though the camp is mainly meant for Nordic youngsters, we also welcome people from everywhere else in Europe! Be quick, we have a limited amount of places for participants and the sign up closes on February 24!

In the next two months, Finnish youth will be represented in the spring event and biannual meeting of Finnish Amateur Radio League. As usual, youngsters will be taking part in the event as well as helping in organizing it. Read more

The main thing, that has been in our mind in Finland for the past two months has been December YOTA month. DYM-camp was held at the start of December, which we mentioned in our last Train The Trainer post. It was organized by the national youth board, Nuorisotiimi. The event is now in the past, and everything worked out very well. We had around 15 participants in the age range from 15 to 27. The main focus of the event was to help and encourage youngsters to a more versatile and active hobby. Over the weekend we also made over 5000 QSOs  Read more

We mentioned that Train the trainer workshop was a new thing at this year’s YOTA. Here in Finland the national youth board of SRAL, Nuorisotiimi, has been having an ongoing work for long time to understand and solve the issues with activating and engaging young people to amateur radio. Substantial things achieved so far are organizing the national amateur radio youth camp Polar in September and taking part in the international December YOTA Month DYM event at a weekend overnight event.

Nordics On The Air (NOTA), an event first envisioned years ago, became reality in spring 2017 when the first NOTA was held in Sweden. NOTA brought people from the Nordics together at YOTA too. An actual plan was devised when representatives from the Finnish and Swedish youth boards  Read more