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 and the number is going to increase as youngsters in Finland have a possibility to rent a callsign OH2YOTA to spread the youth around the world.
The second thing we’ve had in the past two months was a NOTA meeting and a get together weekend for Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic youth representatives in Korpilahti. The meeting was a great success and we all got some great ideas for the future of not only our countries but for the whole Nordic youth amateur radio community.
Next bigger thing in the future of Finnish and also Nordic youth amateur radio society will be NOTA, (Nordics On The Air) camp which was held in Sweden in 2018. This year it will be held in Salo, southern Finland during Easter. Also, Finnish national youth board will have a weekend meeting in January, which will be focused on youth activities in Finnish amateur radio society. Also, we have to think about getting new people into the hobby, and especially about why youngsters find their way to the hobby so rarely?
In the future, we will be marketing our hobby more widely in social media as well as in person. Finnish amateur radio magazine, “Radioamatööri” also has a special edition magazine focused to be used on marketing the hobby for youngsters. We will be spreading that more widely in the future.
Finnish youth in amateur radio will stay active on social media via Nordics On The Air Instagram page, @nordicsontheair, which will stay active in the future as it has been now. The page is maintained by Finnish and Swedish youth boards, and it is supposed to spread in other Nordic countries as well in the short-term future. We also have WhatsApp and Facebook groups for Finnish, and Telegram chat for Nordic young hams which we use widely for communication.
