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. Read more

This years YOTA Camp brought some (smaller) changes into the TTT work in DL. Main point is that the team has grown and now consist of this year’s DL Team, some Youngsters from previous YOTA Camps and the youth coordinators of the DARC.  Since we’re all scattered throughout DL we organize ourselves using a group chat or Skype calls. Until now we mainly spoke about new ideas and techniques we got through the camp and how we can continue and improve our work so far. More concretely, this consists of a general feedback from this year’s team on the youth work done so far, as a previously uninvolved person notices other aspects. We also compared and analyzed the differences between a bigger summer camp and a subregional camp to get each camp advantages. Hereby, we were able to benefit from the ideas of other countries which we’re gained by our team throughout the summer camp. This includes using other tools to organize the general work and plan upcoming events. Besides that we realized that compared to other countries, our social media performance could be better since most of the youth nowadays uses it in everyday life. Constant uploads can help to stay interested in our hobby and additionally they can show youngsters new projects what they might want to check out as well.  Read more

After YOTA ZS, there were two events on our more or less immediate TODO list—December YOTA Month and the subregional camp, planned for March.

However, before that, there was another youth event in Germany: Carsten, DM9EE, opened his contest station for youngsters to operate during CQWW SSB, as part of YOTA’s Youth Contesting Program. Six youngsters from three countries, some of which have never met before, manned the Multi-Two station for the full 48h of the contest. For those that want to take the chance as well, this year YCP will stop by DP9A during CQWW SSB, and motivated young operators are always sought after!

This year’s callsign for December YOTA Month in Germany was DF0YOTA. Like last year, the callsign was used by youngsters all over Germany, totalling 4453 QSOs. For this year, we hope that we can get both more youngsters on the air as well as more QSOs into the log. Ideally we can get some big station(s) opening their doors for youngsters, but whether we can arrange that remains to be seen.

By far the biggest event though was the subregional camp, taking place in Baunatal in central Germany in March. It took place right next to the DARC headquarters, in DARC’s “amateur radio center”, which consists of a radio station as well as several conference rooms, perfectly suited for format of event that we ran. Read more

The YOTA Subregional Camp in DL finally took place! In Mid of March 60 Youngsters met and spent a great weekend  together. A daily report can be found on the website, see  https://www.ham-yota.com/category/subregional-activities/ . This report will focus on our notes and organizing ideas behind the camp. It was mainly organizied by some former YOTA-Camp participants and voluntary youth workers of the DARC

Since we (the organisors) also wanted to include the international character of ham radio, we apply for a Subregional YOTA Camp and therefore also invited international youngsters. To not scare away German youngsters (e.g. younger ones), who might be afraid of a camp held in English, we decided to keep German as the main language, but with the opportunity to also have all program points in English, at least with an interpretor.

The amount of pupil youngsters in DL is quite high, so had to find a suitable date for them. School holidays aren’t harmonised, depending on where you live, you can have different holiday dates than others. Therefore the camp was just hold on one weekend.

The place for the camp should be the headquarter of the DARC in Baunatal, the accomodation was the Hotel owned by the DARC (we still had to pay for it, but we did get a discount). Due to the most capacity for everyone in the Hotel in Baunatal, the best suitable date was mid of March. Read more

We‘re finally looking forward to our Subregional Camp in Baunatal in March! During the last two months we focused on everything concerning the camp.

Besides a lot of organizing points, we also tried to advertise our camp as well as possible, so that nearly every youngster knows about it. This includes: promoting the camp on the DARC website, post on the social media accounts of the DARC and YOTA as well as reposting it, writing a general email to all young DARC members, advertising in the CQDL magazine (German ham radio magazine) and also directly contacting youngsters.

It actually worked well since the camp is completely full and we also got a high number of participants from Germany itself.

Besides the planned activities for all youngsters, we want to use the chance to get to know the German youth and try to figure out, Read more

Although the amount of youngster in DL is high, the general situation still has to be improved. Around 1000 youngsters (aged 14 to 26) are members of the DARC, whereof nearly 500 are even licenced. This shows that the best way for improving the situation is to work with the existing youngsters.

Therefore our first steps will be to find out more about our already existing young members. While working with them together, we first want to get an overview of why they are doing ham radio, which issues are the most fascinating for them, what do they like and what do they think about ham radio in general. But besides those who can give more detailed answers in these questions, our aim is also to involve those who aren’t active (anymore). Read more

Report on youngster situation in DL
Current situation in the DARC:
Young members (aged 10 to 26): 1214 members, thereof 489 licensed Youngsters (aged 14 to 26): 1020 members, thereof 481 licensed Thereof we have in total 110 new young members entered this year.

First steps:
Focus on the huge amount of youngsters we already have. Analyzation of the current situation in a more detailed view: Who are they? Why did they enter the DARC? What motivated them/what fascinated them? How experienced with ham radio are they already? What to they expect?  Read more