The Tunisian youngsters made a great presentation about their activities in the recent YOTA Online session, you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fgMXxiVFhc&t=472s
The Algerian youngsters made a great presentation about their activities in the recent YOTA Online session, you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOTrnbNSnDA
Yota Italy never gives up!
At the end of february we got stuck in the lockdown due to the Covid-19 situation, it wasn’t easy to stay at home for more than two months but we managed with no problems at all, most of the youngsters are students, which, of course, were stuck in their houses and we got to find something to do! here are some of our activities:
- YOTA NET
The YOTA NET event is already a tradition of the international team, it’s a special evening where we meet over the air to spend some time together, we thought that the lockdown would have been a great event to do a NET! We first started in 40m band but at that moment they were unusable, we also tried 20m and 80m but with no success at all… the only way was to use one of the biggest ham radio repeater in north Italy that provides coverage of the whole north area (IR3UX) with a live stream of the NET on the Discord platform in order to let all the youngsters able to listen the big QSO that born in that moment, we got more than 20 non-Yota operators that came to salute us. Success!!
- Online CW lessons
We noticed that some youngsters were interested in learning CW but they never had the opportunity to do that, so we decided to start an online class made from youngsters to other youngsters! Two teachers were on charge: Matteo IU4LGT and Ernesto IU0LJD, we had 12 participants for more than two months and we were all able to learn the basics of a QSO and also do some training over the air!
- RadioMobile online class
A well-known software for ham radio operators is “radiomobile”, a special program which allows you to create coverage maps, link budgets and much more! The teacher for this lesson was Sebastian IN3FOX which has shown us how to make a coverage map for a repeater and how to find the best route and places for a radio assistance (for example during a rally or any other type of similar race).
- 4NEC2 lesson
Another very interesting software is 4NEC2, this program allows to draw, study and optimize any kind of antenna, it shows the radiation pattern, gain, f/b ratio and much more. Marco IU2DPM (the teacher) taught us how to make a GP antenna and a three element Yagi for the 2m band.
- GnuRadio class
We all know that ham radio is always getting closer to the PC so Francesco IU3GNB thought to show u show to use GnuRadio, a software that is able to create a flow chart and talk to and from SDR or any other type of digital stream in order to get and send data to the PC. Francesco taught us how to create a two-way chat connected to the Adalm Pluto that the “Urgensat Team” presented at the Maker Faire Rome 2019, a text chat based on the QO-100 satellite
- Radio, radio e ancora radio!
The main activity for an ham radio operator is the radio of course and we all participated to a lot of different events that the Covid situation made even more crowded!
The most participated events were the Italian Activity Contest which runs through the whole year in the VHF & UP bands, we had 15 youngsters in the 144MHz category and other guys in the 430MHz and 1296MHz chart. We also have IU4FNO which is going to be in the first three places of the national competition, congratulations! We also participated at the “Sezioni VHF/UHF”, “Cinisello VHF”, “Trofeo ARI 50MHz” and “Lazio VHF”.
Even on the HF bands we had youngsters participating in the WPX SSB, EA RTTY, OK-OM DX, Yuri Gagarin, SP DX, Helvetia, ARI DX, UBA CW e Russian DX.
We all hope to keep this spirit through the whole months and years and hope to see you on the air!
As we all know is has been difficult to organize something or even to imagine the future.
News here are good, one of the F youngsters left France in January to study in South Korea, the others obtains degrees and achieved their studies.
News here are good, one of the F youngsters left France in January to study in South Korea, the others obtains degrees and achieved their studies.
Each youngsters enjoyed “on-air” time on their own (a bit sad by the way). I took part in the ARRL DX SSB from LX7I, then enjoyed the WPX SSB in 9A remotely from France and then I will have the opportunity for the second time to join HQ team during the upcoming IARU.
YOTA F activities are down, and for the next five years I really hope that we will have more and more young licenced in France. There will be events as each year to promote local clubstation and society where each youngsters will be present to promote their activity. There is also the science weeks (october) where we have at the local clubstation 4 days of presentation of the hobby to boys and girls (from 7 to 10 years old).
Next year as we should have organized that activity this year, we will try to meet during a week end, as well as taking part together in a contest, and being at the SummerCamp !
Something that I want to try is to make a couple of articles with fresh descriptions, pictures and explanations of what is hamradio and why there is still interest in this hobby even in the youth sphere – and then to diffuse them. We all saw too much articles where old ham get a place in press, with an ugly picture, where the journalist restitution of what said that guy about radio ever sound annoying.. So we will try to get this up!
For the rest with a little group it’s difficult to impulse something, find something new, try to get the rest involved or interested but, no worries that we will get that group running well !
Tom F4HWS
ACTIVITIES DURING AND AFTER QUARANTINE
- Annual Lithuanian Cup contest took place just as it normally would. Although there were a lot more youngsters, compared to previous years, that worked on-site.
- More hams finished their QO-100 set-ups and can now do QSOs.
- New DMR hotspot in city Šiauliai that has many VHF/UHF/SHF loving radio amateurs.
- Several groups of radio amateurs expressed their desire to organize local mini hamfests this summer.
PLANS FOR 5 YEARS
- Make young people more aware of amateur radio by getting them to interact with it by hosting events directed at young people. We already have some events that require no knowledge of amateur radio to participate and you try out many ham radio activities. This could hopefully attract more youngsters into amateur radio hobby.
- Help hams or clubs obtain QO-100 set-ups. We can already see better equipment, designed for this purpose and at a lower price, emerge from the chinese market.
- Overcome some minor newly introduced station registration rules to allow for easier station operation.
- Make local amateur radio chat/email conference pages more youngster friendly and attempt to move to a more modern platform.
Links
TTT Report Germany – January 2020
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.
Specially youngsters often don‘t have a good opportunity for operating since they might not have their own station. We therefore created a new option for youngsters to help them finding a station. We set up a map on the DARC website and invited clubstations as well as private owners to open their station for youngsters. These stations were then visible on the map such that youngsters can check out if there is a station close to them. Further arrangement (e.g. date and time) was then managed by the youngster and station owner privately.
Besides the DYM we are happy to have opportunies for german youngsters to take part in youth camps. At Winter YOTA Camp in PA we had a german team of six youngsters participating. Probably we will have german youngsters participating on other subreginal camps, depending on the available places for non-regional youth. Nevertheless, we have youngsters currently planning a small sub-national camp. We hope that with more youngsters participating in camps, we will also be able to get more youngsters motivated to plan and organise their own small camp.
Questions, comments or ideas? Feel free to contact us also via ham-yota@darc.de
73 de YOTA team DL
Since the last report in October 2019, nothing abnormal have happened as compared to the winter time the previous years, but still a lot of activities have been going on. There is an ongoing course organised by the university radio-club OM3KFF and increasing number of contest activities of the radio-club OM3KII.
The course is being very successful this year; many of the attendees are going to undertake exams in a few months. The attendees are also becoming more and more active and initiative in the ham-radio activities. They participated in YOTA December, which shows that during the course they got hold of particular skills to be able to handle pile-ups that are very usual when using our special callsign OM19YOTA. We are very happy about the number of the beginners that are continuing to show interest in ham-radio and hope that the course the next year will be even more successful.
Regarding YOTA December, youngsters were mostly active from the radio-clubs OM3KII and OM3KFF, there was only a few active solo youngsters for unknown reasons. However, all together we managed to make 2568 QSOs, which is a decent number considering the size of our country. December was a fun month, broadcasting from the radio-club stations brought together many friends and we also managed to record moments where during contests there were only youngsters present on the station. This showed the beauty of youngsters guiding youngsters.
73 de OM1DP
At the beginning of participating OK Team at YOTA summer camps, we always get great support from our member society – CRC. Not only that, since 2017 we have had the Youth Committee and in April 2019 board of CRC co-opted two new members, participants in previous YOTA camps.
Recently we have organized weekend gatherings where we took part in the Yota December activity. It was two days and nights from 06.12. to 08.12.2019. It was in the Moravian part of the Czechia in Benešov near Boskovice. Finally, 6 licensed amateurs and 3 children took part. We’re cqing from the club station OK2R under OL19YOTA. The conditions weren’t the best and the number of 325 QSOs corresponded. It sums to the previous QSO made by single members to a total count of 2570 QSOs.
Thereafter we organized YOTA Subregional camp, we decided that we would like to focus on kids. The situation in the Czech Republic is more or less the same ar in previous years. We focused a lot of our energy on youngsters but the results aren’t as we assumed. A lot of youngsters spending their time in the leisure technics’ clubs, however, afterward they don’t continue anymore. But with kids, it’s completely different. If you get them interested in the very begging of choosing how they want to spend their free time, they will continue then. So, for now, it’s the main of the topic of Youth Committee to get Kids On The Air.
1 December YOTA Month
The swedish youth team, SK0YT arranged a camp at SK7AX, SVARK amateur radio club. The camp gathered 5 youngsters from Sweden and one from Germany, currently studying in Sweden. During the weekend, we activated the callsign SH9YOTA. There was an article about the event published in the swedish QTC paper afterwards. The event generated positive response from the other parts of the swedish board.
There was also a day activity in Sundsvall, where SA3BPG, Markus activated the callsign together with three local youngsters. There was only three partici- pants but everybody were invited.
Figure 1: SA7GGO, Gustav and SA6BET, Wille taking down the masts after the DYM-event
Figure 2: Gustav, SA7GGO and Alexander SM7-8451 operating the station
Figure 3: Oliver, SA5ODJ and Claudia, SA5YCL operating
Figure 4: SA7GGO in the schack
2 Nordic youth meet
The nordic youth meet was held in Uppsala between 14th and 15th of December 2019. Participants from all the Nordic countries where there and the general planning for NOTA was made. There was also planning for youth activities and what one can do for a youth camp.
3 Upcoming events and youth team situation 3.1 NOTA 2020
Team Sweden will take part in NOTA 2020. The team will go by car in a big NOTA transport to camp Killingsholmen.
3.2 Youth team situation
The problem in sweden is still the geography. It’s hard to organize camps, to which people can get easily and still get enough participants since the travel time often is about 4-6h for a majority of the paricipants.
Report on the YOTA Activities of the Association Amateurs Radio Algeriens
Introduction
After the Annual YOTA gathering that took place in Bulgaria in August 2019, the ARA has tried to follow on the same spirit in order to acquire more youngsters into the activity. Thus, we have looked into a source of youngsters that would already be motivated by radio communication, electronics and a community life.
The ARA considered two fronts, the first one being the ARA headquarters in Algiers 7X2ARA, and the second is the Radio Club 7X3WPL in the northern border to the Sahara Desert 400 km south of the capital in the town of Laghouat. The choice makes sense since these are the only two radio clubs that are active at the moment.
In the north, we focused on three nests that were promising, the first one being the Boum community that is located in the town of Boumerdes 45km east of Algiers. This is a community of around a hundred of youngsters having different activities from technical to art related activities, we contacted them and some of them were keen to follow along the train of ham radio.
The second nest is the National Polytechnic School, it is one of the best engineering universities in Algeria, they deal primarily with telecommunication and electronics which made them quite an interesting target within our reach.
The third nest is the University of Bab Ezzouar or USTHB, and more specifically the electronics and telecommunications departments.
In the south, in the Town of Laghouat, there are two nests, the first one is the University of course, and the second is a private school, called ADI School that teaches languages and technical skills. This school was chosen because it is a hub of English speaking people that are more or less attracted to all that is technical and the manager of the school was quite interested to show her students a new activity that promotes languages and respect of the other.
With all that in mind, let us dive into the activities that were undertaken for the youth in both regions (north and south). The activities are in chronological order from the oldest to the newest.
Activities listing
24 August 2019 Boum Community Ham Radio Introduction and Training
Afif 7X2RO has brought a group of youngsters from the Boum community and explained to the hobby as well as doing some QSOs. Rayane also did a course on radio electricity to help them fathom the matter. This has been done to prepare future candidates for the candidates for the Ham Radio Certification Exam.
30 August ARDF Test with the Boum Community
After discovering the ARDF activity in the YOTA summer camp in Bulgaria, we thought of implementing it in Algeria in a few steps, this activity was the first among those.
Afif 7X2RO, Mohamed 7X3TL and Rayane (Call sign coming soon) have gathered a few members of the Boum Community in order to try ARDF and understanding how orienteering works. The ARA has 10 ARDF receivers on 80m but no transmitter to go with, so we brought the TS480 along with a car battery and CW Keyer, we set the frequency and put the worst antenna we could find in order to have a weak signal to work with. Then we sent the youngsters to get far from the radio and asked them to come back following the signal they hear. After that, we explained the ARDF competition guidelines and why it is important for search and rescue. They were mesmerized by the activity.
18 October 2019 JOTI JOTA in Sidi Fredj’s Scout Camp
Of course, the ARA could not miss the JOTI JOTA event, thus, Afif 7X2RO and Mohamed 7X3TL and Sifou (Call sign coming soon) went to Sidi Fredj in the scout camp to meet with a hundred scout coming from every part of the country and explained to the Ham radio hobby in all of its activities: Ham operation, Electronics, ARDF, SSTV through Baofengs, Morse code….
The event was a great success, but, it is to be understood that scouts in Algeria have drifted very far away from Ham radio, that it is why it is quite complicated to get them back to it.
19 October 2019 JOTI JOTA Setif Scout Camp
Because we cannot be in two places at the same time, we organized a second JOTA the next day in Setif 300 Km east of Algiers, where we met a second scout company where we did the same activities as the day before, but the number was quite the double as we met with 200+ scouts over there.
21, 23 October 2019 ADI School
In Laghouat, we have found a private school that was ready to open its door to us to do demonstration and explain what the hobby is, so taking that opportunity, Mohamed 7X3TL has taken a good amount of equipment and showed the three classes studying Communicative English what the hobby is about and what we do. The students were discovering this for the first time and were quite interested.
07 December 2019 HF Electronics Workshop CLS Boumerdes
After understanding that a lot of youngsters are attracted to electronics more than radio operation we thought of organizing electronics workshops which deals with HF, thus, the first workshop was organized in Boumerdes with the great help of the aforementioned Boum Community in the Scientific Hobby Center.
There were 50 participants from the three nests, the Boum Community, the Polytech School and the USTHB University
We explained to the participants the Ham Radio Hobby and how it relates to electronics and telecommunications, then, we gave them components and a circuit board and asked them to solder a simple 6 components ultra QRP CW transmitter, after they finish they tested their transmitters with the TS480 that we brought for the event.
We also took the opportunity to operate with 7X2YOTA, the QSOs count was very low due to the low position of the antenna (no high place to put it on).
Also, the date of the event was very close to the national elections, and all activities for clubs and associations were to be stopped, thus, we tried to keep the event as quite as possible.
21,22,23,25 December 2019 Certification Training and Exam
In order to prepare the candidates for the operator certification exam that was to be organized on the 25th of December 2019, Afif 7X2RO and Rayane (Call sign coming soon) did a three-day training on Radio Procedures and Radio Electronics for the aforementioned candidates.
14 Candidates took the exam for certifying ham radio operators on the 25th of December 2019, as of the date of this report, the results were not yet given and we are waiting.
26 Dec 2019 Field Day Zemmouri by the Sea
We took the opportunity of the coming of Abdel 7X2TT/M0NPT to Algeria, to have a field day in the beautiful beach of Zemmouri 60Km east of Algiers. With the help of the Boum Community we gathered 12 youngsters (what 4 cars could take) in order to show them the hobby from a new perspective, Abdel 7X2TT/M0NPT brought equipment to use the Satellite Es’Hail as a repeater to make DXs, as well as, other satellites. We also used a small CW beacon from those we made in the aforementioned electronics workshop that we hid under the hood of a car and pulled a long thin wire from it on the ground and asked the participants to find it with the ARDF receivers. It was a fun task because nobody could imagine the location of the beacon.
We also explained what a beacon is and had some demos with a Raspberry PI doing the transmitting with RPITX.
A beautiful day like that one had only one way to end and that is by a mega pizza that we shared together.
28 December 2019 – 2nd January 2020 Cap Sigli Low Band DXpedition.
To end the year, in collaboration with the Tunisian ARAT the ARA organized a DXpedition to Cap Sigli 200Km east of the capital, there was 2 youngsters from ARA and 2 others from ARAT on boy and girl from each country. The focus of the event was activating 7X7X in the low bands when possible and switch to other bands when there is no propagation.
The ARA and ARAT team shared knowledge and experience in different areas, it was a fruitful event for both, especially for the youngsters for whom this is the first expedition that they participated to.
The youngsters made many QSOs from which a lot of them were DXs, they were really proud.
7X7X was active on SSB, CW, Satellite (QO-100 and others), FT8.
We ended the year on a great barbecue that was enjoyed by everybody.
December YOTA Month in 7X3WPL
During the whole month of December, a full training program has been unraveled by the team of 7X3WPL in the south for younsters.
Driss 7X3DL explained the operational part with SSB, Satellite and Digimodes.
Hamid 7X3DA who is a pioneer of the CW in the country, did some CW training sessions.
Mohamed 7X3TL Did a 4 days electronics training and explanations to culminate in the making of a CW ultra QRP mono frequency transmitter that they tested with the TS480Sat of the club.
We also had the visit of Dr. Boutte Aissa a researcher in the Algerian Space Agency who did a presentation about Nano Satellites and the possibility of making our own.
We also had the visit of Professor Abdelkader Abdellaoui who spoke to us about space and what it represents for the Ham Radio Hobby.
The December month in 7X3WPL was a full view of all that is related to ham radio that the youngsters who were present really enjoyed. The long event ended by a ceremony in which everybody went home with a certificate of participation and a big smile.
Where are we from the 2018 planning for 2019
Assembly of transmitters for ARDF practical training for young academics
This has been done with great success twice in Boumerdes and Laghouat (7X3WPL), even if it was their first time doing so. They built the first part of the transmitter, i.e. the oscillator. The remaining pieces to the transmitter (amplifier and auto keyer) were not built because of lack of budget.
Conferences within universities and high schools
This has been done for universities as we have discovered that for high schools, the studies are too condensed for the students to have extracurricular activities within class time or after those.
Import of kits (UBTX) organization of several sessions practical work for the assembly of these kits
The original plans were to get sponsorship from the US embassy, but we had no reply from those regarding this project.
Participation in the JOTA jamboree on the air as every year
The target was beaten, because it was done twice, in two places with two different scouts associations.
Organization of a field day for young YOTA people (the event will take place in a forest or mountain)
We have organized three of these, on in a forest and another on the beach and the third was in Cap Sigli.
Organization of one or two ARDF competitions
The transmitters were not ready in time because of budget issues.
Organization of IOTA with YOTA people
Done in Skikda July 2019.
Planning for 2020
Participation in the 2020 JOTI JOTA
Participating with a greater experience and understanding of scout youngsters.
Participation to the 2020 YOTA summer camp
As it was a great experience in Bulgaria in 2019, we wish to send a few participants to YOTA 2020 summer camp to acquire more knowledge and motivation.
Organize a 2020 Emergency Communication Fieldday
Organizing an Emergency Communication Fieldday and getting involvement of more youngsters.
Involve more youngsters with the certification exams
Training and exam taking, the goal is 3 to 4 exams in the whole year.
Low band YOTA Expedition
After the great success of the event that was co-organized with ARAT by the end of 2019, we wish to repeat the experience and give the world the opportunity to contact a 7X station on 80m and 160m.
Sub-regional YOTA Camp
If we acquire the right budget, we wish to organize a gigantic sub-regional camp in Algeria with 100 participants from Algeria, Tunisia, Mali, Niger and Occidental Sahara. These countries were chosen because we have students here in Algeria of these countries. We are still waiting for the subvention of the ministry as well as looking for other sponsors to cover the immense cost of such an event.
Participate and organize SDR camps
Since SDR is the cheapest way a ham radio can start operating, we wish to push youngsters into this discipline. Thus, we have Rayane that will go to the SDR camp organized in Paris, and with the experience acquired she can coach candidates to participate to the SDR camp in Tunisia to then be able to lunch our own SDR camps in Algeria.
Open New Radio Clubs
We wish to open new radio clubs where it is possible to do so, i.e. having the right young power to drive the club and take it in charge. This is because it is true that the Algerian radio club coverage is very weak.
Organize a Dexpedition IOTA with Youngsters
If we get the right authorizations, we could organize an IOTA Dexpedition.
Plan for more events with ARAT
Since our great experience with the Tunisian Association ARAT, we wish to rejoin our efforts in order to organize more events together.
ARDF Competition
We wish to organize ARDF competitions in Algeria if we get the funds to procure equipment such as transmitters and receivers.
ATV Field Day
We wish to organize a field day using ATV with F4COX, we will see how that goes.
Organize electronics workshop
As our recent experiences showed, electronics is a great way to attract youngsters that are studying in the field of Telecommunications and Electronics in to the hobby, thus we wish to organize continuous electronics workshops.
Difficulties that we encounter
The main difficulty that we encounter is a budget one, it is to be understood that in Algeria Ham Radio is not very well known by the authorities, thus they give very little or no money to the association. We are trying as best we can to push but to almost no avail. Ham Radio is a hobby after all and some activities should be partly paid by participants, but it should also be understood that in a country where the best case engineer gets a monthly salary of 400 euros, it is really hard to buy anything that is imported and not subsidized by the government, the question becomes like this, do I eat for a month or do I starve for a few months to get a transceiver.
Adding to that the strict laws that consider ham radio equipment as dangerously as firearms, a lot of youngsters get into despair when facing such issues, we try our best to find circumventing solutions, but, it is said that what we are doing is very hard and it is not to be compared with other European countries with more relaxed laws and budgets.
