As previously mentioned, I did not know about this programme until today, so my report will be short.

I have unfortunately not done any youth activities in quite a while. Partly because I’m quite unexperienced myself and partly because of living far away from other amateurs. I hope to get tips from other youth coordinators on how to get people interested anyways.

We will have a common Nordics meeting in Finland in the beginning of November, which I hope will be very useful for exchanging information and getting contacts.

I hope I can get more Norwegian youth to join me for Nordics on the Air 2019. Before NOTA 2018 I tried using Facebook, but got no response. I’d be interested in knowing how others contact their youth and get people to respond.

I do not know how many youngsters that have been licensed since YOTA 2018, unfortunately.

73

LB4IH Trond

My activities are split into two clubs – OM3KFF, OM3KII.

OM3KFF

https://www.facebook.com/radioklub.omega/

http://www.om3kff.sk/

University radioclub in Bratislava. We have good QTH (for HF) at student dormitory. Last 2-3 years were affected by reconstruction of dorm buildings so we had to release old rooms and built new club almost from scratch. Also lot of work on the antennas regarding to that.

We attended to youth science exhibition on September like last years. We showed HAM hobby to kids and wide public. As you see on photos, we built up HF antenna and bring radio with loud speaker so we can handle with noisy environment (and it really was). One operator was operating the radio (SSB, CW), another one was explaining. Also HF propagation, we had white board, markers, some printed materials, student’s book for exam…

Another show was handy, we repeat contact any time we needed, we had arranged buddy for that. Daring kids can do contact by their own. Analog and also DMR.

We was also handing out QSL cards, kids were instructed roll the dice (big one from IKEA)  that showed how many. Sounds silly but works. We got recommendation for this technique from PR guy.

Also satellite yagi took attention, we could explain basics of antennas, show that HAM do not has to be expensive hobby. We listened air traffic control on that. Tried listen to satellites but only some NOAA chirping or noise from carrier / telemetry.

Kids keep attention just for few seconds so it is very hectic. Finally, it is more public presentation than recruitment but hopefully some of the kids will pop up later. Three presenters are minimum staff even for this small stand, we were four most of the time. We think about double stand for the next year.

Whole event were professionally organized, supported by some funds. Exhibitors were volunteers, mostly secondary schools, universities, science club and some companies.  We did not pay for stand, neither got paid. Organizers did PR, mostly online but mainly they convinced many schools to come with kids also outside of Bratislava.We alse had own roll-up poster at the stand.

Beginners course OM3KFF

We have some new newbies who interested so plan is do some PR (online) and open a ham course this October. This new members usually take exam in spring. We had about 8 participants two years ago who made Novice license. 4-5 of them are really active and they are waiting for Extra exams this autumn.

We do PR mostly FB page, shares thru friends, university group, hamradio and CB groups. We also willing to pay Facebook ad. And ‘old fashioned  hamradio webs, CB forum. Again we don’t expect dozens of participants but if you get 4-8 people for course, half of them will stay in this hobby, it’s 2-3 guys every year, 20 per decade. Let’s be realistic, how many members do you gain in your club?

What I see as crucial, very few radioclubs do this. I listened lot of excuses but people are simply lazy or/and selfish. Some (contest) clubs are closed – our effort money, we operate. That selfish approach leads to lack of operators after 10 years of building QTH. In one moment, they all are 60+, some have passed away, lack of tower climber, operators… OK, enough complaining

Minimum age for license is 14 years. Exams are oral and usually everybody do it. The bigger bogy is engineering part but examiners  are usually  helpful and tolerant especially for youngsters.  On course we teach them all – law regulations, operational practices, engineering and later also morse code.

OM3KII, summer youth camps

http://www.om3kii.sk/

VHF / UHF / microwave contest station. QTH at Velka Javorina, 970m ALS. Most of members live in Bratislava and they have children in teen age.

Last several years, OM3KII organized Ham youth camp on behalf of association (SARA). Unfortunately, reply for public call was very lax this year so we decided organize only smaller club camp.

Generally fathers-kids holiday with trips, swimming pool, barbecue, some portable operation (SOTA, Fauna-Flora) and VHF activity contest.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZPNs7DSko7JB1Fxh7/

This is point. Our summer was always focused as study with exams at the end and morse code practice. We also do some hiking trips, portable operation, solder some kits, very easy foxhunting,… No rocket science, like everywhere.

Last few years, camp was ‘saved’ by teens of OM3KII (5 kids of hams in the same age). I thing, it’s necessary to move it towards more standard summer camp, rid of exams, less study, easy with CW, more fun activities and sport. Also spread more PR, not only in ham community. I suppose this at SARA board, one older member hated me for that but I thing I can convince the rest of board members.

73

Ondrej OM4DW

Train the trainer (Tunisa Team)

Feeback

In this 2 month after the train the trainer the things we are

first, focusing in getting better at radio’s skills and knowledges because we are trainers so we need be good

second, month ago we done a meeting with ARAT president and membres we present our rapport of yota and from that day we started preparing for the joti jota it will be an event with many activites like foxhunting,robotic, constraction workshop…etc and this weekend u will be see the result

In the future we will prepare and event like radio day it will be a public event for normale people and we will be more focused on recruitment of universty student so when they became trainer they can help us a lot because we dont have many trainer in tunisia.

The problem for now are the equipment we don’t have it in tunisia so we need to get it from outside but there is many problem to get it inside.

Tunisia Team

Moahmed & Wael

some photo from the meeting

some preparation for the joti jota

Since yota we do a conference about what we do at the yota and what we learned to try to get more youngsters.

Many coming your way please notice that our youth here are likely to engage to Amateur Radio but they don’t know what all about Amateur Radio means so we are preparing some university presentations from end of this month in preparation of National YOTA event branded as Mikoko Amateur Boot Camp 2018.

Amazing Story I can share little to you today before sending my summary since YOTA 2018 in SA here below

“I can just imagine at first I saw people using VHF Radio and I was so much interested to use it but I can’t even touch them but thorough Amateur Radio Network I have been one of the pending/upcoming licensed Amateur Radio but mostly YOTA 2018 have been much interesting and motivate me to work on my dreams”

With my picture I was instructing the team of individuals who are guiding our visitors through Mikoko Tours & Safaris (www.mikokotours.msg.or.tz ) I shall be updating new Amateur Event local website supported by Mikoko Scout Group (www.amateur.msg.or.tz )

73

Olais K. Raphael

Jeugland Amateur Radio Club – ZR6JRC

Youth Activity post YOTA

During a Club meeting we decided to ask our members, like we did at YOTA what are their interests and what would work for them, and not surprisingly it was much the same list.

Kit building, ARDF, Morse, Bacar, SDR, Satellites, Micro processors, Antennae building, Contesting, YOTA month and JOTA/JOTI.

This was then split up into activities for this year and those for next year. For the remainder of this year we have decided to focus on a power supply kit, a micro processors project, YOTA December month participation and contesting.

2019’s activities will continue with learning more about micro processors with an eye on flying such a project on BACAR, antennae building for satellites, Morse code learning and ARDF. We also plan to run a RAE course in the first half of 2019.

Marketing

Marketing of our club ZR6JRC is also a priority and this was done at the recent introduction evening of the school to the prospective new students for 2019

(From left to right: Maryna ZR6MC, Jos ZU6JOS, Nadia ZU6NAC, Dewald ZU6DRH, Cameron ZS6CYE)

School Awards

For the first time scholars received recognition for their Amateur Radio achievements during the October awards ceremony at the school with Dewald ZU6DRH and Nadia ZU6NAC being awarded certificates of achievement, ZR6MC, and ZS6CYE receiving Honours colours.

As far as we know, Jeugland is the first school in the country to recognize Amateur Radio as an educational subject.

   KIT Building

Kit building started off with the construction of a PSU. Pc boards were etched and drilled and then components soldered. This took longer than expected due to the different levels of competence of the club members. Care will have to be taken in future to match complexity and skill.

Micro Processors

A Donation of Arduino kits allowed us to send 5 club members home with a kit to play with.

These will be recycled to other members, and hopefully assist with the next BACAR challenge.

Contests

ZR6JRC took part in the SARL national field day competition on 8 – 9 September 2018, with a field station being set up on the hockey field. A national 7^th placing was most welcome.

   JOTA Weekend

The Scout JOTA event saw Guy ZSGUY and Jos ZU6JOS Camping with the scouts at Modderfontein reserve (grid locator KG43BW) 

Other club members came at various times during the weekend to man the station. Conditions on 40/80 meters were not very good, but we managed to contact V51WW (Namibia). Rain, cold winds and lightning were some of the challenges but a most enjoyable experience.

73

The ZR6JRC club members.

Following the YOTA camp in South Africa, the Austrian team was very enthusiastic and highly motivated to get more youngsters involved in ham radio. After we discussed the best approaches to the problems we faced and all the things we had learned during the TTT sessions in South Africa, we started discussing our plans with the OEVSV Youth Coordinator, OE3FTA, the President, OE3MZC, and other members of our society. The support we received was very large and the leadership of the society is equally as convinced as we are that it is necessary to increase the number of young members.

At the YOTA TTT sessions we laid out a very simple plan which consists of three stages:

1. Build up a network of existing youngsters
2. With this group “re-activate” youngsters which were licensed but then lost interest
3. With this larger group of youngsters work to get completely new members

Stage 1 of our plan is well underway with a network of youngsters developing around the Vienna area which meet at the OEVSV headquarters every Wednesday to discuss future plans, technology projects, contesting etc. OE3BVB, part of the Austrian team in South Africa arranged for  4 youngsters who have limited to no contesting experience to take part in the CQ WW SSB contest at a major contesting station. A number of similar projects are developing which are bringing the group of youngsters closer together whilst also expanding it. A few of the youngsters also participated in the IARU Region 1 VHF contest with the call OE1W, a great opportunity to learn about VHF stacks and a very fun weekend of antenna building and operating.

Stage 2 is proving to be more difficult as we have not been able to get access to a comprehensive list of licensed youngsters, this is mainly due to privacy and data protection regulation. We will have to find a way around this problem to be able to find those youngsters who were licensed but are no longer active.

Stage 3 is not our priority at the moment, however lots of ideas have come up and there is a lot of enthusiasm for a number of possible projects in this stage. One example of the work which we are actively doing at the moment is the JOTA event which will be co-organised by OE3BVB. Apart from this there is a lot of work being done by other society members, for example a number of courses for the radio examination are offered at government organisations, technology and soldering workshops such as building antennas and presentations on all kinds of interesting topics.

What we have learned so far is that it is very important to have a lot of communication between youngsters, in our case this is quite effective with the weekly meetings, however members who are too far away to join these can communicate via whatsapp/telegram groups. This seems to be the most important factor for existing youngsters as many did not know any other hams of their age before and can find a completely different environment which is much more interesting and engaging in these groups.

We hope that our group of youngsters will continue togrow, and that the teams of other countries will have similar or even greater successes,

73 de OE3VVU