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youngstersontheair

December 1, 2024
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December YOTA Month is here!

By | YOTA Month 2024 | No Comments

Every year, for the entire month of December, several youngsters under 26 become active with their national YOTA callsigns.
This will continue in the 12th edition of December YOTA Month (DYM) starting from today!
We have already 48 active YOTA callsigns from different countries participating this year.

Check out active stations at events.ham-yota.com/spots.

Remember to follow us during DYM and listen in on the air for all the YOTA stations.
Everyone can support the youth worldwide by collecting QSOs with YOTA stations on as many bands and modes as possible.
Collecting QSOs can make you eligible for Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum awards.

Take note: Awards are not live yet, they will become live later in the competition.

February 19, 2024
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Apply for Youth Contesting Program – TM4Y (@F6KOP)

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After years of sleep, the Youth Contesting Program is back for new adventures. For this fresh new start, we are planning a full team of young operators to make some noise with the call TM4Y, during CQ WPX SSB (March 30-31), in one of the best “big gun” stations of France: F6KOP 🇫🇷

From simple transceiver usage to committed contester, any level goes! Although having very basic knowledge of French would also be a plus!

If you are interested in joining the fun, please contact Jules F4IEY (mail on QRZ.com) for more info.

Note: Keep in mind that you will have to travel there by your own means and places are very limited (10) due to the nature of the event. The applications will close on March 1st for organization purposes but feel free to show your interest after this date!

73 DE F4IEY / K4IEY Jules

August 12, 2023
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YOTA Summer Camp 2023 | Day 6 | 11.08.2023

By | Publication, YOTA Hungary 2023 | No Comments

Day 6 – A day trip to Budapest 

This blog post is written by Mari ES5MJR from YOTA Team Estonia.

On the last full day of the YOTA Hungary camp, the participants were taken to see Budapest, to put a cherry on top of the cake that this event already was. 

 The trip started early in the morning as two buses full of youngsters set off from Györ. I ended up in the back of the so-called party bus, where music was blasted and energetically sung along to. Those who didn’t have the energy managed to somehow sleep through it. 

 We arrived in Budapest within 2 hours about 10 am. We were separated into 3 different groups. To our misfortune, we had to climb multiple sets of stairs to see the gothic Matthias Church. Once we made it to the Trinity Square everyone was in need of water and the Estonians of some shade (me being one of them). Tomi HA8RT kindly took the tour guide role and enlightened us with some history. After some recovery, we started slowly heading down with beautiful panoramic views of the Pest side of the city. 

The views from Trinity Square were amazing!

 A marking point in our tour was definitely the Liberty Bridge connecting Buda to the Pest. The 19th-century architecture was stunning to look at. The bridge was lively, filled with bicycles, cars, and the occasional tram. The Donau River itself wasn’t any inferior, the water was full of tour boats and yachts making their way in the waves. We were so amused that we were stopping the traffic. Luckily we got out of the way quickly. 

We had lunch in the Pest part of the town (pun intended) near a market where we could fill all our souvenir needs starting with magnets and ending with local sausage. 

After our meal, we walked through the city center encountering gorgeous sights of various architectural eras. Taking a quick stop in front of the Hungarian National Museum to take group pictures. Our last cultural destination was the Kossuth Square where we took the metro to our bus pick-up. Following the slightly chaotic bus ride home, to top the trip off, we had some pizza before the closing ceremony. 

The only way I could describe the official event ending was joyful… and also loud enough to trigger some hand-watches warning of damaging dB levels. The night was followed by an after-party in the cafeteria. Some people say that international world peace can never be achieved, but for those 2 hours of dancing and singing to various songs around the world with people from so many different countries, I think we managed to do something.

73s

Mari ES5MJR

 

August 11, 2023
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YOTA Summer Camp 2023 | Day 5 | 10.08.2023

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Two blog posts are written from this day, keep on scrolling for the pictures!

This blog post is written by YOTA Team Italy

We woke up in the morning and after having a very tasty breakfast we went to the conference room where the first lesson of the day took place.

In the conference room, we found Sylvain waiting for us to teach us what is behind a Software Defined Radio (SDR). Although there are plenty of people who know about electronics and technical stuff, the lecture was easily understandable for people who do not know much about that. Alessio, in particular, found it a bit difficult to follow it as he is a high school student.

After that, we had Tibi, OM3RM who held the lecture about the CR3DX contest station showing us all the equipment in the shack (e.g. antennas, towers, main radios, amplifiers [legal limit “always”] ). He also mentioned they had a 5400km (3400 mi) QSO with OM in VHF! He moves roughly 5 times a year for major contests such as CQWW / WPX. Furthermore, they are trying to set up a fully functioning remote station to be able to work even longer, anytime, anywhere.

Lessons finished early so we had plenty of time to play some sports together and go for a swim in the river nearby. After a quick snack with some gelato, we went to the outside station where *insert guy’s name* from Mastrant showed us some of his products and how to use them to hook the antenna on the ground. At the end of the demonstration, we were also given some gadgets such as a 12 meters-thin rope and a cute keychain. It was really interesting because we had the opportunity to see and touch everything with our own hands.

At 5 pm, it was time for *presentations by youngsters, for youngsters*: Two teams prepared topics in order to share their experience and inspire the others to follow suit.

To begin with, the French talked about their “beta test” gathering at Provins for their TM45KOP activation. It consisted in explaining what and how the weekend went at F6KOP top gun station.

Then, Team ON showed us their project about a weather balloon that they launched. The purpose of the balloon was to measure some weather information such as temperature and humidity and to transmit them back to Earth with a radio signal. It also has GPS tracking that makes localization a lot easier and it’s very useful when you have to retrieve it. They told us that you should inform the local air force before launch so that it won’t be a threat to anybody and even showed us how to build our own since it’s very simple. Apparently, that circuit is very durable and can be reused or reprogrammed for other activities such as a transmitter for ARDF.

The last presentation was quite a surprise, Jules F4IEY and Bastien ON4BCY showed us something that we did not even think existed: the Meme Appreciation Month (MAAM) event! Everyone was hyped up to see that a group of young youngsters are putting fun special callsigns on the air, just for fun! By doing this, they spread the internet culture and give a more modern image of amateur radio. One of the outstanding proposed ideas was to make an SSTV meme contest, which Sylvain, IARU R1 president, approved! Now we are just hoping this funny event can actually happen.

If you have any ideas of special calls to be activated between July and August 2024, feel free to fill this form

The fifth day of the annual YOTA Summer Camp was again a day full of fun and activities. This blog post gathers the feelings of the fifth day into 10 pictures!

The day began with a presentation about SDR radios by Sylvain F4GKR


Many of the participants found one of the more technical presentations of the camp really interesting!


YOTA Camp is also about having fun together with new friends! Before the next presentations some of the participants were playing with a ball outside of the lecture hall.


The next presentation of the morning was about OM Power


During the free time, after lunch, the most enthusiastic operators were already on air with HG23YOTA!


The next activity was about Mastrant ropes at the outdoor station


At the same time, there was also an opportunity to be on the air. Look at how shiny the YOTA key looks!


The afternoon consisted of the last presentations of the camp.


Team Belgium told us about radiosondes!


Soon after Belgium, we were introduced to Meme Appreciation Month, after which it was time for Dinner!

In the evening many participants went swimming in the river nearby, operated the HG23YOTA, and enjoyed the company of likeminded hams all around the world!

August 10, 2023
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YOTA Summer Camp 2023 | Day 4 | 09.08.2023

By | Publication, YOTA Hungary 2023 | No Comments

After a short sleep of 3 hours, the day started with a lecture given by Josipa 9A3GVJ just after breakfast, where she presented us with the basics and some ideas on how to organize youth events in our countries. Although we knew some of the programs mentioned, she came up with some good ideas that we will use for sure back in Spain.

Just after that, we divided into 15 groups and each group had to plan one youth activity following some statements. This was actually very nice as the colleagues in our groups were from different countries and this helped us to have a variety of opinions on how youth activities perform in our respective countries.

The morning wasn’t still over. Zoli HA1AG explained to us some tricks and advice on how to operate digital modes on our day-to-day and in contests. After his recommendations, we reached half of our day, time for lunch!

Afterward, we went to the radio station to get on the air with the special call from camp HG23YOTA. We had very nice pileups, and they weren’t the only ones, as the next activity was the Off-air contest. It’s called off-air as no radios are used. How is this possible? Our voices became our radios, we had to break through the pileup of the rest stations, having very rare DX stations like 3Y0J, HV0CN, and E66E. It was the first time that the members of our team participated in this type of contest, and they really liked it! Definitely, another idea we will try in Spain.

Off-air Contest in action

The schedule ended with some Kahoots about some curiosities about Hungary and some concepts we learned in the past lectures. Suspiciously, the Hungarian team won the Kahoot about Hungary… 🤨 It was time for dinner, some free time to get on the air and enjoy the camp with the rest of the teams until dawn.