August 11, 2019
4

YOTA Summer Camp Bulgaria 2019 – Day 1

By | Community Written, Publication, YOTA Bulgaria 2019 | One Comment

YOTA Bulgaria 2019 – Day1

During the day the YOTA participants arrived at Sofia airport, only about 30 minutes from the Hotel where the YOTA camp is taking place. By the evening all the teams had arrived at the hotel in Bankya, just outside the capital city Sofia.

After a grand ceremony in the middle of the city centre, YOTA 2019 was officially opened by Alexandra Alexandrova, the deputy major of the city. All participants joined the ceremony together with many local citizens of Bankya.

Welcoming words were spoken by Vesi LZ1VST and Panayot LZ1US, on behalf of the organising committee and BFRA, joined by Lisa PA2LS and Alex IV3KKW representing IARU R1.

The ceremony ended with traditional Bulgarian dances performed by a local dancing group wearing beautiful traditional Bulgarian dresses. In the end the audience and the YOTA participants joined the dancing to traditional Bulgarian folk music.

We are looking forward to a great week of learning and exchange between different countries, with the first presentation starting tomorrow morning.

August 9, 2019
1

Countdown to YOTA Summer Camp – Bulgaria 2019

By | Community Written, Publication, YOTA Bulgaria 2019 | One Comment

On Sunday, 11th August, 80 youngsters from 28 countries will meet near Sofia, Bulgaria.
Because it’s again time for the YOTA Summer Camp … hosted by the Bulgarian Federation of Radio Amateurs (BFRA)!
It will be full of many great activities like operating the camp station LZ19YOTA, building kits and antennas, doing sight seeing tours around Sofia or just enjoy the time with new friends in the accomodation.

Also, based on the international character of amateur radio, a cultural exchange won’t be a shortage: the typical YOTA intercultural evening, group work as well as our newly implemented Train The Trainer program will also take place.

Worlwide youth teams under the age of 26 from Albania, Algeria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Kosovo, Lithuania, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania, The Netherlands, Tunisia, Turkey and the United Kingdom will be having an awesome get together during the upcoming week.

Stay tuned for further daily updates including a lot of pictures from this years Summer Camp!

73 de YOTA PR Team

 

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August 9, 2019
0

Youth Contest Program – RSGB IOTA Contest @OZ5E

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OZ5E, one of the biggest Stations of Denmark, invited the youth of IARU Region 1 to work the IOTA contest from their tremendous station. This Station of the DCA (Danish Contest Academy) by Jan (OZ1ADL) brings all the antennas and tech you want to work up to Multi 4 in HF operatiom. In the end 3 youngsters followed the call. Mattheo (IU2GGL) and his friend Nicola (IN3GJH) came from northern Italy and Lars (DL4APT) from northern Germany. A british youngster unfortunately couldn’t make the trip.

The IOTA contest is all about islands and even if Denmak has it’s share of them, OZ5E is on the mainland. With the contest rules dictating that only islands can run as a multi station, we decided that we will have to settle with just a checklog. But on the other hand that means we could bring up 3 signals at the same time when everybody wants to operate. After a quick discussion we decided to stay on SSB only because nobody of us had the CW experience.

Our main rigs were two FT DX 3000 and a Flex 6700 as spare. Every band had it’s own more or less switchable independent antenna. On 80m, a 4 phase controlled verticals in a four square, allowed for an interestingly high amount of control. The problem with the 4 element 40m beam was that the broken rotatir couldn’t be replaced due to high winds thus leaving us with just a rope for manual turning. Both 20m  and 15m had big 5 element beams. Only on 10m we had to use a Multiband Beam (8 element 10m – 40m) as the new tower for the 10m beam only arrived days before.

One FT 3000 was connected to a manual amplifier and thus only used on the 20m beam to prevent retuning the amplifier when band switching. The other two stations were connected to remote Acom 2000’s. It was  interesting to have a deeper look behind all the tech of a big gun station. Especially all the needed switching and filtering that is needed to get the right antenna connected with one of the transceivers. We even did the N1MM setup on the 3 PCs ourselves.

Short before the start things got a little bit hectic. DL4APT took some final audio recordings on the N1MM voice recorder. And the others received tips and tricks from OZ1ADL. The idea was to start with the two FT DX 3000 one on 20m and the other on 10/15m. But calling on 10 and 15 didn’t work due to crap conditions so we decided to switch to 40m. And 40mit did instantly an awesome run (177 QSOs in one go) and the station never left the band for the rest of the whole contest. Thus we used the Flex to work 10, 15 and 80 when we all 3 were operating. Each Station hat a bell we hit every time we got a new multi, sometimes leading to competition if 2 stations did a search and pound.

Even with little contest experience to start, with little help and support from Jan, the Italians quickly stated to get accustomed to the contest. So we 3 were working at a good pace and switched radios from time to time to have a quick break and get to work on different bands. A bit after 2am local time in the morning Nicola and Maztheo got their well deserved sleep. So for the night Lars was regularly switching between 40 and 80m. Around 5 in the morning 40m had a great opening to North America even tired working a pileup can be energizing and more than fun. Later in the morning Mattheo came back and some time later Nicola. They did the main work from that point on. Dead tired Lars searched for multis and new stations on the Flex.

In the end we had 1435 QSOs with more than half on 40m. And we finished with a score of 2.181.984 pionts with 204 multis. 10M didn’t work that great and on top of that the multiband antenna picked up a lot of noise from the other stations even with the bandfilter. But most important we had lots of fun and were more than satisfied with our result.

After the contest the Italians cooked some pasta. Invigorated with the much needed meal and short rest we all together visited one of Denmarks highest hills the Himmelbjerget with 147m. Then the Italians left for Copenhagen where they stayed the night before they travelled back home.

And in a little bit of British YOTA tradition DL4APT came most of the way to and back from OZ5E by bicycle. Just on the way to the station it was a bit to hot (up to 35 °C) for an enjoyable ride so he took the train till Flensburg to shorten the travel to 1 day. On the way back he slept one night in a wooden shelter and was home before the Wednesday club meeting.

We like to thank the IARU for the invitiation and support of the YCP and the DCA, especially OZ1ADL for having us at OZ5E.
Youngsters, please apply for the upcoming YCPs! It is definetely worth it. Making new friends and doing contest at the same time is just awesome 🙂

73 de Lars, DL4APT

YCP team member
at OZ5E 2019

July 30, 2019
0

Winter YOTA – Let’s go PA

By | Publication, Subregional Activities, Winter YOTA PA 2019 | One Comment

Winter-YOTA is a sub-regional Youngsters On The Air event, in The Netherlands as part of the VERON youth committee.
The Dutch version of this page can be found via this link.

This year, in the middle of December, it’s time for Winter YOTA. A fun radio camp especially for youngsters. Would you like to learn more about amateur radio? Did you just pass your radio license exam? Or have you been active already for a couple of years? You’re invited to take part in this unique event!  Which is full of amateur radio activities and most important – a lot of fun!

Who?
Are you 16-25 years old and interested in amateur radio? Then you’re the perfect fit for this event. You don’t need to be a licensed radio amateur to take part, also newcomers to the radio hobby are welcome.  We only ask you to be a member of one of the IARU member societies.

When?
Arrival: Thursday 12 December after 15:00
Departure: Sunday 15 December in the morning after breakfast

Where?
In the forest nearby Oosterhout (Noord-Brabant), The Netherlands. There is a camp building with all required facilities, such as sleeping places and space for activities.

Winter YOTA Programme
At the moment, we are working hard to finish the full program. However, we can inform you that it’s going to be very interesting. It will be packed full with workshops and all kind of activities regarding amateur radio. Since the location is in the middle of the forest, we will have activities outside in the woods.
December is also December YOTA month. Youngsters across the planet will be active with callsigns with YOTA in its suffix. We will be taking part in this event as well, using the callsign PA6YOTA.
In short, you won’t get bored, next to the program we will take care for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It will be fun event! If the weather is with us, we will have a winter-campfire evening.

Costs?
Biggest part of the event is funded by IARU R1 and the VERON funds. We ask all participants to contribute a fee of €25.
Accommodation, 3 meals a day and activities are covered.

How to apply?
You can apply via this link Keep in mind that we have a limited amount of spots available and thus might have to pick who can come.

When you register for the event, you will automatically apply for the newsletter.
Do you have any questions, or are you looking for more info? Feel free to send an email to: winteryota@ham-yota.com

July 28, 2019
0

Train the Trainer report – The Netherlands – July 2019

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While it takes too long for some youngsters that JOTA/JOTI take place in the 3th full week of October, scouts has initiate a summer camp round.

This year the event takes place at 10, 17, 24 and 31 July and 7, 14, 21, 28 August.

The Dutch round will be at 19:30 (local time), via the PI3UTR repeater.

Frequency is 145.575 MHz, CTCSS-tone 77Hz.

The European round will be at 20:30 (local time) and take place at 80 meter-band

Frequency is 3690 kHz ±QRM.

 

Last edition (15 June) of kids-day, we noticed that the radio bands were not very crowded with kids. I am very curious how this has been done in other countries and what has been promoted here.

 

The promotion of YOTA Bulgaria has resulted into a Dutch team.

We are very pleased that we can visit this event and look forward to meet other youngsters.

 

The Dutch team of winter YOTA 2019 is ready to receive the registrations of participants.

By clicking the link below, you will find the application form of winter YOTA 2019. https://forms.gle/4nmRuAc48QVjkDT7A

Please be aware that filling in this application form does not guarantee that you will get a spot in the camp, we have a limited number of spots available. After selection of the participants, you will get a conformation email including whether you are selected or not.

 

Another important activity this year is to meet youngsters and other people at the HAM radio convention 2019 (https://dvdra.veron.nl/).

On November 2nd, 2019, the 59th Ham Radio Convention will take place in The Netherlands. Organiser is VERON, the Dutch radio society. We have a youngsters place.

 

Last, but not least we are busy to see if there could come a second edition of a youth edition of our club magazine.

We have seen that the magazine is a good promotion of the amateur radio hobby.

It is also easily accessible and with this you can for example easily approach a school.

Next TTT we hope to tell more about this project.

 

July 28, 2019
0

Train the Trainer report – Germany – July 2019

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After YOTA ZS, there were two events on our more or less immediate TODO list—December YOTA Month and the subregional camp, planned for March.

However, before that, there was another youth event in Germany: Carsten, DM9EE, opened his contest station for youngsters to operate during CQWW SSB, as part of YOTA’s Youth Contesting Program. Six youngsters from three countries, some of which have never met before, manned the Multi-Two station for the full 48h of the contest. For those that want to take the chance as well, this year YCP will stop by DP9A during CQWW SSB, and motivated young operators are always sought after!

This year’s callsign for December YOTA Month in Germany was DF0YOTA. Like last year, the callsign was used by youngsters all over Germany, totalling 4453 QSOs. For this year, we hope that we can get both more youngsters on the air as well as more QSOs into the log. Ideally we can get some big station(s) opening their doors for youngsters, but whether we can arrange that remains to be seen.

By far the biggest event though was the subregional camp, taking place in Baunatal in central Germany in March. It took place right next to the DARC headquarters, in DARC’s “amateur radio center”, which consists of a radio station as well as several conference rooms, perfectly suited for format of event that we ran. For this so-called BarCamp, the participants themselves held the workshops. This relieved us from having to acquire workshops, and also fostered contact between the youngsters, most of which have never seen each other before, and also often are the only youngsters as their local club. With over 50 participants from four different countries the camp was a resounding success.

Of the participants at the camp, many met each other again at several events: DARC’s FUNK.TAG in Kassel, the Fichtenfieldday (a field day event mostly targeted at youngsters, which had a lot more actual youngsters this year), as well as the Ham Camp during Ham Radio in Friedrichshafen. Some of the participants also got their license (or upgraded) since the subregional event. However, we do seem to have troubles motivating our youngsters to go to the summer camp in Bulgaria, with only three applicants. Part of this might have do to with summer holidays in Germany (which differ from state to state and are notoriously incompatible with most of Europe), but considering how many youngsters were at the subregional camps (and how many more there are within Germany), that is a disappointingly low interest. We’re happy about any ideas from other countries on how to tackle this issue.

July 28, 2019
0

Train the Trainer report – Slovakia – July 2019

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With warm weather, Radioclub OM3Kii involves youngsters in VHF/MW contesting more often. VHF Activity contest every month is a perfect opportunity to get kids behind mike, even the youngest ones.

In big contests, we are active on bands from 144 MHz up to 10 GHz that means 5 operating positions and lot of “time slots”. Young members get more and more chances to operate on 144 MHz and 432 MHz. It’s the best investment for the club with minimal affect to results as they are supervised and some are already as good as the older OPs. Without new blood we would easily had a lack of operators to cover all bands.

July 16, 2019
1

Youth Contest Program – King of Spain Contest as EF0F @EC2DX

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2 reports from participants at the recent Youth Contest Program in Spain at EC2DX station.

 

“They’re not hearing me.” – “This guy is really strong!” – “Propagation isn’t great.” – “Why have they stopped to talk in the middle of a contest?” – “They’ve stolen my frequency!” and the most important of all, “I made the contact!”.

All of these are exclamations used in an experience that started when my father (EA1UF) called me one day from work to let me know about the the possibiliy of operating in the King of Spain contest, as part of a team including other youngsters, operating from Imanol (EC2DX)’s station.

I decided to accept the invitation and take advantage of the opportunity. I had no idea what to expect, but I told myself that there is always something positive to be had in every occasion, Later on, when I started to get more details, the most attractive and unexpected part was that we would be able to use the Royal callsign EF0F, which would make it an unforgettable experience.

Looking back, what makes me remember that weekend with special affection wasn’t exactly that, rather the whole experience; after 5 long hours drive with my mother EA1ABO, who doesn’t like driving fast (a bicycle could have overtaken us), I felt really well received, the equipment we were going to use was spectacular, nothing like what I‘m used to at home. We got down to business, the two YLs in the team were in charge of 40m, I had never had such a level of rapport with someone I had never met before, we would make signs at each other to keep things fun during the first 8 hours we were voluntarily on the air the first day. But that wasn’t the end of it, nor was the emotion towards the end of the contest. Trying to make contacts right up to the last few seconds… thanks to the wonderful opportunity which I’m very glad to have taken advantage of. I was able to meet a great group of people, both hams and non-hams. I will remember the experience not only because of the radio but also for the laughter and everything I learnt (which was a lot). Overcoming the initial nerves thanks to the help of other team members David EA4AOC, Imanol EC2DX and Roberto EA2RY, who were constantly on hand to help us and give us tips to make the operation easier, and the feeling of “victory” when I looked proudly at my 40m team mate.

Summing up, I think I agree with my fellow operators when we say that although this was a unique and unrepeatable experience. It’s one that I would live out again every year if it were possible.

 

73 de Andrea, EA1IZH
YCP team member
EF0F @EC2DX 2019

 

 

This experience started with a call from a good friend (Juan EA8RM) who told me that the EA contest club had invited me to take part in the King of Spain contest from Imanol (EC2DX)´sstation, which obviously I accepted without hesitation.

The trip started on thursday when I took a flight via Madrid, arriving at Bilbao around 2330 local time. Imanol and Eider picked me up from the aiport and we spent the night at their house in San Sebastian. Early next morning after a shower and breakfast, we left for the station, which is 200km from San Sebastian. I didn’t know anything about Imanol’s station, I imagined it was a good station but it wasn’t until I got there and saw evrything that I realised how lucky I was to be able to operate from there.

We had only talked on the phone but from the start it was as if we had known each other forever, they were very kind with all of the team. The truth is that I would never have thought I could have had such a good time in one single weekend. The youth team was made of Andrea EA1IZH, Oihane, and myself

We returned to San Sebastian on sunday, stayed the night there, and then Eider took me for a tourist tour round the city. In the afternoon they took me back to the airport for my return trip to EA8.

I didnt just operate from the station, I also was lucky enough to have a long chat with Imanol about his station and the truth is that you learn a lot from a person like him. I though it was marvellous that most of the station is home made, and also Eider is worthy of admiration. She isnt a ham but fits into the ham world perfectly and I though it was unbelievable everything they do to help try to get through to youngsters who are interested in radio.

An experience I would repeat without a doubt.

 

73 de Roberto, EA8DGH
YCP team member
EF0F @EC2DX 2019

 

 

June 29, 2019
0

Train the Trainer report – Czech Republic – May 2019

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Czech Republic Championship of Children and Youth in Radio Engineering

Recently in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm Czech Radio Club organised Championship in Radio Engineering. During the weekend, from 10.5 to 12.5.2019, had to 28 participants from all Czech Republic show their skills in Radio-Amateur Sport. Participants were separated into three categories: younger pupils (under 12 years old), older pupils (13-16 years old) and youth (17-19 years old). They competed in three disciplines: pass an expert test, make a competition product in time and introduce their own product.

After completing the last part of the competition, the participants went on a trip to Pustevny. That was the time to evaluate.

The prize was awarded to 9 participants from all categories

See more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QoUTBAfK0A

Jan contesting from his student dormitory

Honza OK1JD took part in 1st subregional VHF contest and few local FM 145/432 MHz contests. He took his handheld and J-pole made on YOTA Austria, sat into the window of the highest floor of the college dormitories and whistled CW by his mouth into the microphone in his FT-60 (modulated CW is granted with more points in those contests). It was very funny to call the CQ-ing station and ask her (verbally), if she knows CW and if we could make QSO this „whistled way“. Surprisingly 2/3 of stations were so enthusiastic as him, so quite a lot of contacts was made.

Unfortunately, instead of what was mentioned above, there was a group of very unhappy people. Those were the inhabitants of highest accomodations near the window, where he sat during the FM contests. Surprisingly nobody from them was interested in this loud activity, which disturbed students from studying. Yes, no doubt with that, they had a good point. Bud highest window in the highest floor, is a highest window in a highest floor, HI. Where else should the VHF operator deny his attention, HI!!!

Our Future plans?

Maker Faire 22.6 -23.6.

During these days there will be fair for hobby doers in field of RC models, electronic enthusiasts, hobby scientists etc. The Czech Radio Club will have the stand there. We will be showing SSTV via satellite repeater, man will take a picture of himself and we will send it to the repeater using one radio. They will be able to see how the picture is being received on another radio on the other side of our stand.

June 24, 2019
0

Team YOTA @HAMRADIO Friedrichshafen 2019 – Day 3

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The last day of the fair started again at 9 o‘clock. While the whole fair wasn‘t as crowed as Saturday, we were visited by a lot of people who were attracted by all the YOTA promotion activities of the previous day. Also some of the Big Gun Contest stations came by to discuss further details about the Youth Contesting Program. We hope to soon announce more upcoming YCP events!

At 12 o‘clock the last prize draw for this year‘s fair took place. Great to see again a crowd around our booth and the happy faces of our winners!

Soon the fair was coming to an end and it was time for the dismantling. Everything stowed away in the car, the team made their way home again. Thank you to all people involved into the preparations, the organisation and the presence for our very own YOTA booth this year – you have been awesome!

At this point also a huge THANK YOU to the DARC HamCamp organizers who offered our international youngsters a cheap and most comfortable place to stay over the weekend directly in the fairgrounds. They already announced that they will have more capacity coming up in next years editon!

See you all again at HamRadio 2020 in Friedrichshafen. Don‘t miss all our activities through the year; keep updated about our events via our homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!

73 de YOTA PR Team