Thanks to Tim (K3LR) and everyone around him for the invitation to the annually contest dinner at Crown Plaza.
We had the chance to not only catch up with contest related activities in Region 2 but to give a short introduction about YOTA and Youth Contesting Program.
We got tremendous feedback from the audience.
K3LR promised us his support and will host an upcoming YCP event in near future!
We hope many others will join his footsteps soon 
😜
Great news! We have finally had the honour to meet Rich (W2VU) from CQ Magazine! He was very excited to hear about our upcoming events. CQ Magazine will regularly publish articles about Youngsters On The Air soon.
Help us grow the future of amateur radio by sharing more youth related stories with the world.
Our youth team over in Dayton had the pleasure to talk to Faith Hannah (AE4FH) today. She is very excited and interested in attending YOTA camp in South Africa this August as IARU Region 2 team. She wishes that there will be something similar in America in the near future!
We had a great get together with IARU president Tim (VE6SH) and Reinaldo (YV5AM) president of IARU Region 2. They gave us very positive feedback on our youh activities. Let’s all hope we will see a YOTA camp in this region in the near future.😜
RFinder goes Youth – after an invitation to the DMR BBQ dinner they were talking a lot about youth activities.
Bob (W2CYK) also announced that he will support future YOTA activities with his quality products … we are looking forward
Our YOTA Dayton staff also met up with Stefano Messi, the president of Messi & Paoloni. We would like to thank them for their great annual support as well. Once more they are providing high quality coaxial cables for the upcoming YOTA camp this year in South Africa.
Flo (OE3FTA), Vice Chair Youth WG IARU R1, and Koos (ZR6KF), organizer of the upcoming YOTA summer camp 2018 in South Africa, welcomed Ward (N0AX) the president of YASME Foundation at our YOTA booth yesterday. They thanked him and the foundation for their generous support of YOTA. Also a big thanks for making this trip to Dayton happen.
On the weekend around 12th of May the annual CQ Mir International Contest took place. Together with a group of youngsters from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Germany and Austria I had the chance to take part from a Top-Gun station in Europe. I met this group only thanks to an initiative from IARU Region 1 Youth-Group.
For some years, Youngsters On The Air have given the opportunity to compete in an ordinary station without any qualifications and prior knowledge. Of course, I did not miss this opportunity! Part of the YCP-Team were Philipp (DK6SP) and Flo (OE3FTA). We met on Friday afternoon in the new club station of the ÖVSV in Vienna. From there we drove together to Croatia. After a few hours of driving, we were warmly welcomed by the team around 9A1A near Zagreb. Another youngster from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Emin (E71CQ) and some young people from the area around were already on site. We started with the most important thing: the food. After a good portion of Spaghetti we where ready to go on. It was time to get to know the station. My first job now was to get at least 300 Americans into my log. So called “Warmeup”. With such a setup, 4 towers with a height of 45 meters each, equipped with uncountable stacked monoband antennas, this task was done relatively quickly. So I was granted a few hours sleep. In the morning it was setup time. There were six stations to configure and prepare for the competition. The team had managed incredible 2 million points last year, and claiming first place worldwide. This position, No 1 World, had to be defended this year.
As a multi-single Station, multiple operator but only one signal on the bands at any time, we have been active on three bands simultaneously with an interlocking system. 24 hours mixed mode CW and SSB stood in front of us. After a hard night and a short power outage last year’s result unfortunately remained untouchable. Thanks to the amazing team and incredible station setup we achieved solid 2100 QSO`s and this resulted in 1.44 million points. A big thank you to the croatian radio amateurs whom I was allowed to support for a weekend! In my opinion, the Youth Contesting Program of IARU Region 1 was a great success. I am looking forward to next year!
73 de OE3BVB, Benjamin
(YCP member @9A1A 2018)
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
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!
News from IARU Region 1© 2024 Youngsters On The Air. Website by ON3YH & ONL11943.
