Train the Trainer report – Ethiopia – October 2018

Train-The-Trainer  Report | October 2018 | EARS, ET3AA

Introduction

Train the Trainer

The Ethiopian Amateur Radio Society (EARS), a member of International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) Region1, promote and help engineering students and radio enthusiasts to learn, experiment and develop their radio communication skills through its only club station ET3AA which is located in Addis Ababa University, Institute of Technology. Most of EARS members are engineering students who have great interest in radio communication and some of them have already been granted individual Amateur Radio License (both from the American Radio Relay League, ARRL and the Radio Society of Great Britain, RSGB) and region one HAREC certificate. As a member, students participate in many experiments related to radio such as modes of communication, propagation, antenna design, kit building and so forth.

This brief report is focused mainly on what has been doing since the last YOTA 2018 event. Since most of the participants are from the University and they are in their vacation time, not much has been covered in terms of the number of participants. But the activities are going to continue together with the coming short term and long term plans. Thus, a brief summary goes as follow.

Activities Done Since YOTA 2018

Experience sharing: Immediately after we returned home from the YOTA 2018, we have organized a small workshop at ET3AA club which is located in Addis Ababa University, Institute of Technology. This workshop is primarily focused on experience sharing from the YOTA 2018 participants to the members of Ethiopian Amateur Radio Society.

Kit building: As we have brought the RTL-SDR, QSX and WSPR kit we have built these kits with the youngsters which have not been participated on the YOTA 2018, and we have also been able to assemble the Yagi antenna and test the WSPR kit but we are on the half way on the QSX one, hopefully we will finish it within the coming weeks.

Preparing for CQ World Wide DX contest 2018: Since the CQ DX contest is the largest amateur radio competition in the world we are preparing to make more QSO’s and bring new youngsters to the competition. We have also a plan to bit our own record which is a total score of 814,674 points with a rank of 15th from the world and 3rd from Africa in 2016.

Training new members: We have organized a training session for the newly recruited and existing members starting from what amateur radio is to the operation rules and procedures both theoretically and practically.

Plans for the next two months

Recruiting new members: As the Ethiopian Amateur Radio only club station ET3AA is located in the technology institute of Addis Ababa University, within the next two months we have a plan to recruit engineering students which are radio enthusiasts to learn, experiment and develop their radio communication skill.

Train-The-Trainer Summary Report | October 2018 | EARS, ET3AA

Participating on December YOTA month and CQ World Wide DX contest: In this year CQ World Wide DX contest we planned to bring new youngsters and also invite staffs of the university from the communication engineering department and create awareness about amateur radio contests.

Organizing Workshops: we have also planned to organize a workshop that emphasize on creating awareness about amateur radio and motivate youngsters to join the society and participate on different amateur radio activities.

What are your long-term plans? In the next 6-12 months

Establishing new clubs: One of our long-term plans for this year is that to establish new amateur radio clubs in high schools as much as possible to increase the youth participation in amateur radio in our country and also encourage students to engage in different amateur related activities and projects at their early ages.

Organizing Training sessions: We have planned to equip new members with the necessary knowledge and skill through adequate regular training about amateur radio and operating rules and procedures.

Unfortunately, as in our country it is not allowed to have an individual call sign due to regulatory issues, and no one have not been licensed so far.

Thanks for reading!
The Ethiopian Amateur Radio Society (ET3AA)
October 2018