This is a first ever “Train The Trainer” summary report by Youngsters On The Air. Gathering answers and ideas from more than ten societies’ youth teams into one short text, to give you an idea what youth work within ham radio all over the world is about. The report is divided into two categories: “General observations” and “What to learn?”.
General observations
This summary report contains answers from July 2020 to January 2021. The main thing that reoccurred in nearly every report from that time is that the activities were nearly completely down. This is a shame, as community and meeting people are one of the biggest parts of our hobby. Luckily for us, we hams can also always communicate on radio frequencies. This was the case for some, but unfortunately as radio clubs were closed in many countries, others completely lost their ability to operate.
From the reports you can see that ham radio related activities have quickly leaped into online activities. Most of the societies answering the report have had at least some online activities, most common ones being courses and (club) meetings. Some of the societies took online to next level by even having online exams. Several societies also used messaging software’s such as Telegram and WhatsApp to communicate among them. Also skeds, which are scheduled contacts, and other on air activities such as NOTA (Nordics On The Air) Easter activation were organized.
DYM – short for December YOTA Month – was the main activity during December 2020. With Covid restrictions given, DYM seemed to be a success for many societies under those circumstances. Multiple societies said in their reports that they saw a lot of new faces operating DYM callsigns, as well as several answers said that they had made QSOs using QO-100 satellite. The remote operating possibility of 9A0YOTA also made an on the air activity during DYM possible for many youngsters around the world. Every youngster under the age of 26 with a CEPT license had the chance to operate from this big gun station in Croatia. Unfortunately, the flipside of DYM was, that some societies were not able to have any activity at all this year.
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Kids On The Air camp in Czech Republic was one of the only camps arranged last year. Picture: Team Czech Republic
What to learn?
Looking at the past TTT reports, it is easy to say that during the current Covid pandemic online events have been “the thing”. However, this is a time to evolve and improve. Community and communication is one of the key ways to get people involved with the hobby. Therefore, to improve this, it’s highly suggested that every society would have at least some way for youngsters to communicate. This could for example mean having a chat group for youngsters. If your society does not have a chat group and you don’t want to establish one yourself, you’re always free to join the big YOTA Telegram group having more than 200 youngsters! Just get in contact with us at pr@ham-yota.com to get access for your youngsters.
Further, online events are easier to approach if they interact the viewers somehow. Having a possibility for participants to comment something or even speak with the organizers is a huge benefit which makes having online events near to “real-life” ones. As said before, there are a lot of different kind of activities that are possible to be held online or directly on the air). Presentations, courses, club meetings. You name it! Everything is possible. If you want to see what YOTA has come up with, please see our YOTA Online sessions on www.youtube.com/hamyota.
Moreover, feel free to see every report on our website at www.ham-yota.com/ttt for full and detailed information about their progress within youth work.
Now I want to wish everyone good luck with the future activities. Hopefully, we will soon be able to meet in-person again. Until then, we will have to do our best, innovate, and show that there’s youth in ham radio!
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73,
Otava Tuomi, OH3OT
Train The Trainer Coordinator
If you have anything to ask about Train the Trainer, please contact trainthetrainer@ham-yota.com
