March 16, 2019

YOTA Subregional Camp DL 2019 – Day 1

By DK6SP | Community Written, Germany 2019, Publication, Subregional Activities | No Comments

Friday, March 15th

While everything was ready to welcome the arriving participants at the Hotel Stadt Baunatal , the last preparations were still in progress at the headquarter.

In the course of the afternoon, the youngsters gradually arrived. After they checked in, the prepared hall filled up. After a short greeting of the participants, the YOTA program of the IARU R1 was presented – after all, the subregional camp is also a part of it! After further organizational hints, there was a small introduction round; this made it easier to learn the names. Afterwards there was enough time to get to know each other during dinner.

After the last participants had arrived during the evening, the intercultural evening took place – as it is the tradition at every YOTA camp. All participants had brought something special from their own region. The most creative things were presented and the most diverse stories told. This was a good opportunity to get to know each other. Afterwards the young people let the evening end together. Tomorrow we will continue with workshops and radio operation as DF0YOTA from the tower of the DARC headquarter.

March 14, 2019

Youth Contesting Program 2019 – ARRL SSB @LX7I

By DK6SP | Community Written, Publication, Youth Contesting Program | No Comments

At the beginning of February, I saw that LX7I will host the YCP for the ARRL DX SSB. I immediately applied after checking transportation. Three weeks after I was notified that I had been selected to be one of the youngsters to go to LX land. We all arrived on Friday afternoon and after a first get-together, we start to get sorted in the shack.

For this experience I met the other team members: HA8RT, DK4EE, DL8GM, DC2CL or Tomi, Louis, Markus and Claudia. It was a really good time with them at the station, sharing experiences, discussing the hobby in our own respective countries and enjoying simple off-air time or pile-up time.

As expected from a Multi-one, Multi-two and Multi-Multi (all in one HI), LX7I station is well organized, the antenna dispatch system is great.

The 22 antennas on the 6 towers, full sized beams, stacked beams, fixed or not, dipoles, verticals, (plus the RX beverages) were awesome for me. As a fan of large antennas, stacking methods, performance comparison, speaking with LX2A Phillipe, the owner of the station, was a great pleasure. It was also very interesting to see the background of a big gun station and its evolution.

It was not my first experience in contesting, but there have been lots of first times @LX7I for me: my first radio operation outside F land as LX/F4HWS, my first ARRL DX SSB, my first time operating monobander Yagi on 40 and stacks on upper bands and my first time in M2 category.
I love the feeling of challenge operation though the friendship relation that you can create on the air and in the shack of course!

The best memories of this WE in LX was the arrival with the meeting of everyone, the warming up session with good pile up from LX/F4HWS, LX/DK3EE, LX/DC2CL, the off times with the group, and the last minutes of the contest at night, fingers crossed, with all the team in the shack, behind Tomi on 80M and Louis on 160M fighting for our last QSO: a new multiplier on the top band!

Finally, competition with ED1R, E7DX and LZ5R was intense and excitement has increased with the live score sharing web site, “cqcontest.net”.

I think that every youngster of the YOTA group who is interested by this type of event or contests should definitely apply. This is a great opportunity to operate big stations, get more experience with ham radio, meet great people, contesters, and friends, and finally to have fun in what they like.

Thanks to everyone, see you for the next one.

LX7I YCP Team, Tom F4HWS.

June 3, 2018

YOTA Train stopped at IARU member societies attending HAM Radio

By PA2LS | Publication | No Comments

A train full of youngsters stopped at all IARU member societies at HAM Radio Friedrichshafen.
Questioning: Does your society have a youth program?

#hamyota #FHN2018

March 28, 2018

First subregional YOTA camp – Nordics On The Air (NOTA) 2018

By DK6SP | NOTA 2018, Publication, Subregional Activities | One Comment

Info about NOTA – Nordics on the Air

NOTA, or Nordics on the Air 2018 has been the first ham camp for Nordic youngsters in
history. In the beginning of March, 20 youngsters from Sweden and Finland gathered up in
an old military fortress to have fun together with ham radio. During four days, below 15m
underground, inside a mountain, we managed to go active on the bands with the special
event callsign SK8YOTA as well as getting to know many new friends.

What did we do?

SES
Special event signal SK8YOTA was active on SSB during the entire camp as well as during
the ARRL DX contest and managed to work some impressive DX stations on 100w and very
simple antennas. The shacks was equipped with three radios and antennas for 20, 40 &
80m.
Every participant got the opportunity to activate SK8YOTA on CW which many youngsters
managed to do. QRS Sked with stations SK0QO & SM0T, together with mentorship from
Oliver SA5ODJ resulted in that seven youngsters got to have their first ever CW QSO on the
air and three youngsters had their second CW QSO. Other modes included a FT8 workshop
where Erik SM3EXM gave everyone the opportunity to operate the new popular mode.

Battle of Hemsön
During the camp there was several games adding up in the battle of Hemsön. Finding the
right resistor in a large pile, soldering and trimming components and building legos, all on
time. As well as games including CW and calling difficult callsigns with your mouth full of
marshmallows.

ARDF
Thanks to Reetta OH1EBO and Antti OH6VA everyone had the opportunity to go on an
ARDF adventure along the coastline of Hemsön, a challenge in the sparkling morning sun
with -17C and 1 meter of snow.

Mountain BBQ
During one evening Peter SA2BLV managed to dig out the snow and start a fire for a BBQ.
A short while after the fire was started there was burgers rolling out and everyone got some
warm dinner while outside in -10C enjoying the northern aurora lights. A beautiful sight but
difficult with the conds on the radio.

Saying goodbye
The entire camp was a great success, everyone had a great time and learned a lot from
each other. Many new friendships were made and everyone is looking forward to the next
NOTA camp. The finnish will have a hard time topping up this years NOTA camp, we can’t
wait to see what they have got for us!

Oliver SA5ODJ
Peter SA2BLV
Markus SA3BPG

February 24, 2018

Nordics On The Air – first subregional YOTA camp

By DK6SP | NOTA 2018, Publication, Subregional Activities | 3 Comments

YOTA, as you know, is expanding its horizons more and more from this year onwards and we are glad to announce our first YOTA IARU R1 sub-project! It’s called Nordics On The Air (or NOTA for short) and will be hosted by SSA. NOTA is essentially going to be a camp for young radio amateurs which will take place at Hemsö fortress in the middle of Sweden near Sundsvall/Härnösand. It will take place from March 1st to March 4th 2018. The camp is directed towards all the Nordic countries. The camp will be held on an island which is connected to the mainland by ferry. The campsite is inside an old large military base in a mountain. The shack and cafeteria are inside the mountain as well. There will be many outdoor activities during the camp. Breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as snacks will be catered and the food will correspond to normal Scandinavian food traditions. As of now, all the gear is set! Special thanks to everyone who helped making this event possible as well as a big thank you to all our sponsors!

At the camp there will be 3 working HF stations covering 20, 40 & 80 meters plus VHF using the call SK8YOTA. Here are some of the activities included in the program:

Tournament “Battle of Hemsön”
Lectures & Theory
Mountain BBQ
QSO contest
Off air contest
Along with other team building activities
Kit building

We hope to see you there and have a lot of fun at the Nordics On The Air camp!