Regional Activities

Our Friday morning, the last day of camp started a little later than a normal excursion day. At 7 am breakfast arrived. As usual, we got a sandwich with either cheese, ham, marmalade, or all of them. After breakfast, the team leaders gathered to go through the day, usually, during team leader meetings, the schedule is presented briefly as well as important holding points for the day. The information given for this day contained a briefing about the upcoming COTA activation. We were supposed to gather outside the hostel to make our way through Karlovac on foot.
The gathering went smooth and off we went, in the city center, a guide joined up to take us on a tour. He told about the history of Karlovac, and how it started as a fortification in the 16th century and developed into the city that it is today. The tour was highly appreciated since we had only seen the camp area before. We walked past many historical marks in terms of both statues and the former trenches that protected Karlovac before we arrived at the sanctuary by the foot of the hill. Here, we were briefly told the history of the sanctuary before we started the hillclimb. We followed the trail up the hill to the Dubovac Castle.

Already on arrival, the stations were set up, so we could start operating immediately. We activated the shortwave, VHF, and the QO-100 satellite. There were plenty of radio activities and the ones that did not operate at the moment relaxed and socialized. The day was overall supposed to be a day with plenty of room to hang around and talk to the new friends that they met at the camp during the week. As always, when radio amateurs are around, there were a lot of interesting discussions. Some of them even made their way into the restaurant in the castle over a cup of coffee. This could not have fitted better, since the next part of the program was a guided tour of the castle. Our eminent guide showed us the castle, including an art exhibition in it, as well as the amazing view from the tower. We got taught about how the castle ended up being where it is today, and how the surroundings were controlled before Croatia even existed. After the tour, we started heading back towards the hostel, the tour guide stayed with us the whole way and told us about the city parts we went past on our way.

Upon arrival, we got served an afternoon lunch, some had eaten a little already at the castle restaurant, but it was still a welcome meal. Afterward, the camp’s last TTT session started. It contained a presentation about social media marketing for when we get home, and many great tips on both how to practically do social media marketing, but also on how to schedule and lay up the work.
One of the traditions in YOTA is the group photo, which of course needed to take place before teams started going home, we took pictures of everybody, single teams, the groups, and the organizing team. There were also flags laid out to be signed by all the participants, together with a T-shirt.

Afterward, we gathered to start the closing ceremony. There was told that there was a special guest coming for the opening, and we could not agree more since Nikola Tesla himself somewhat miraculously came to the stage. Having studied in Karlovac, it must have felt nostalgic to return after so many years, and he told us about his studies and his work in an age when radio was concerned to be almost magic. He had a small speech for us, and then the camp leaders started the certificate ceremony. All participants received a certificate of participation and the ones who had accomplished something extraordinary during the camp, such as having their first contact, received a special congratulation and applause from all of us.

There was a pause in the closing ceremony for dinner, and then we got onto the award ceremony. This was held short to make room for social activities. But there were awards given out to the teams that had, for example, written the best blog posts or taken the best photos during the week. After the award ceremony, the party started. There was some last night karaoke at the tents, and a cozy campfire to sit down by and enjoy the last night with all the new friends. I hope that everybody enjoyed it as much as I, myself did. And I think that I’m not guessing too far from the truth!

With day six, the second to last day has already started! Breakfast started at 7 o’clock, but most of the participants came rather late. Mainly due to the reason that the youngsters are staying awake longer in order to enjoy the time together in the evening! As usual, a short team leader meeting was held until the schedule for the day started with energizers. For the rest of the day, the youngsters have been split into three groups, since there were three workshops planned for the day. It simultaneously was a great way to get in contact with some new teams. Even though there is also time to get in contact in the sparse time, it is rather hard to meet everyone due to the high amount of youngsters (nearly 100!).

The first workshop for one of the groups was about deploying a vertical antenna. All things needed in order to set up a portable station using a vertical antenna were provided. Together as a group, they had to find out how to set up the antenna, which parts had to be assembled, and what to take care of. After setting up the antenna, they took measurements and adjusted the antenna if it was needed. To make sure that it is properly working, they did some QSOs. After working for a while, it was time to dismantle the antenna. With enough youngsters at hand, this was done quite quickly.

Another timeslot has been again reserved for operating on air. The station is up and operated by youngsters nearly any time, but the workshop slots make sure that everyone will get a chance to operate and improve their skills with the help of others. Thus, during this operating workshop time, you have seen a really experienced youngster helping a younger one to make his third QSO in his lifetime. Another example has been two girls, operating together independently without any assistance. But still, someone passed by and still help them by showing them a small trick of the logging software that they didn’t know before.

ARDF was one of activities on Thursday

After two workshops, it was already time for the obligatory lunch break. The weather was perfect, warm, and sunny, and the lunch area was enjoyable due to the shadow of the trees.
The afternoon continued with the last workshop. It was finally time to get the wabbits of the former workshops in action! Since there was one wabbit soldered by each participant, it would have been impossible to get all of them involved in the fox hunting. Nevertheless, there were 12 wabbits chosen, including one at the accommodation ground. The rest has been placed in different locations in the park which was just next to the accommodation. Everyone got an introduction to the receivers and got to know the basics of ARDF. Since this was new to a few of the youngsters, there was no competition behind, only a deadline was set such that everybody came back in time to keep up the schedule. Even though the participants could have returned after the first fox, everyone continued trying to find all of them! It was hard though since due to the self-build wabbits the transmissions were not always set up properly. Nevertheless, some youngsters still managed to find all of them in time, also including a few who never tried ARDF before.

The workshop slots ended earlier this day, but due to the schedule shift of the previous day, there was now time to hold a double TTT session. It included again presentations from participating countries, showing everybody what kind of youth activity they organized and most importantly which steps they have taken in order to organize it. In order to spread the word within the member societies, the TTT session included group work, where each team had to start working on a report about their impressions of the camp. This can then be used as a base for a report for publishing in their national ham radio magazine. After the TTT session, dinner was served as usual. The rest of the evening was left to each participant to decide for themselves. Some went straight back to the station, but most of them sat down together at the evening activity. And so the evening ended for most of them around the bonfire.

Wednesday started again at 6.15 o’clock in the morning. Everyone gathered in front of the building to get some breakfast before getting on the bus for the second excursion.

After about an hour of bus drive, we reached the capital of Croatia. Hopping off the bus was close to the main square in Zagreb. Once arrived, participants were split into three groups and met with their tour guide. Thanks to them, the youngsters not only got the typical sightseeing spots but also got some more insights into the historical background of Zagreb. Starting at the main square, each group took a slightly different route, but all ended at the technical museum named after Nikola Tesla. The museum has been the second part of the day’s schedule. The visit there started with a high-voltage show. It has been very impressive and included also not only experiments but information about Nikola Tesla himself. He for example went to high school in Karlovac, which is the location of our camp! Some participants also volunteered for helping the museum guide show the experiments.

Nikola Tesla Technical Museum in Zagreb

After the show, it was time for a tour through the rest of the museum. There were many old vehicles and a mine shaft to see. It was very interesting to see how people worked underground back then. Even though there was not much time left, the youngsters agreed that the radio exhibition can’t be skipped! Since it was already time for lunch, the busses picked everyone up and brought us to our lunch location on Medvednica. We went to a restaurant on the mountain and got served lunch. After lunch, half of the group went on to the summit of the mountain. When our group was eating, the other group had kindly been setting up a radio station. We could start working SOTA immediately and therethrough the Sljeme summit was activated. The group operated on both HF and VHF, and there was plenty of non-SOTA QSOs done as well, since we were so high, and the coverage from both repeaters and simplex was so good, doing a QSO on an FM handheld was easy, and even some Slovenian repeaters were easily opened on a handheld with 5W and a rubber duck antenna.

After operating the SOTA station for about three hours, we went to the cable car down. On our ride, the traffic was dense on the camp frequency since everybody wanted to make a QSO with their callsigns ”/Cable Car Mobile”. Down in the valley, the buses waited and we started going home. After arrival, dinner was served, and thereafter, the day faded into evening and soon it was night.