Just in the beginning of 2020 it’s time for a new Kidsday. Kidsday is generally on the first Saturday in January and the third Saturday in June. This event is especially created to promote Amateur Radio to youth. This is a moment where you can share your amateur radio hobby with your family, grandkids, friends, scouts or even to the general public. This day can be the first time for youth to experience a real radio QSO, hopefully they get interested in becoming a licensed amateur radio operator.

You could make use of this suggested exchange: Name, age, location and favourite colour. Be sure to work the same station again if an operator has changed. To draw attention, call “CQ Kids Day.”

Suggested frequencies IARU R1:
10 Meters: 28.350 to 28.400 MHz
15 Meters: 21.360 to 21.400 MHz
20 Meters: 14.270 to 14.300 MHz
40 Meters: 7.080 to 7.120 MHz
80 Meters: 3.650 to 3.750 MHz

Other suggested frequencies by ARRL:
12 Meters: 24.960 to 24.980 MHz
17 Meters: 18.140 to 18.145 MHz
40 Meters: 7.270 to 7.290 MHz
80 Meters: 3.740 to 3.940 MHz

Are you taking part in Kidsday? Share your experience with us by email, via facebook or Instagram @hamyota_offical.

Visit the ARRL website for more info.

Last week, 12 – 15 December, Winter YOTA with the theme “Let’s go PA” took place. The 4^th sub-regional Youngsters On The Air event of 2019. 35 Youngsters from 10 different countries took part in the event, held in Oosterhout, The Netherlands. In 3 days, the youngsters learned a lot about the amateur radio hobby. Many of them discovered new things to delve into, like satellite communications. Many had the opportunity to have their first QSO’s on HF, VHF or via QO-100 using the special event callsign PA6YOTA. This week was also about learning activities and skills which the youngsters can take home to their country and use to get more youngsters fascinated by the hobby. Combining amateur radio with fun activities with like-minded youngsters is the key to spreading the hobby amongst young people.

Read the full blog, including many pictures, on this page.

We also would like to say a big thank you to IARU Region 1, VERON and all other sponsors for making Winter YOTA possible!

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The entire month of December several youngsters under the age of 26 will become active with YOTA as suffix in the callsign. The idea for this is to show the amateur radio hobby to youth and to encourage youngsters to be active on the ham radio waves.

You won’t hear YOTA stations often during the year. Thus, the only chances are the camp stations during YOTA summer and subregional camps. And of course, an extended presence during the December YOTA Month activity. Over 40 stations signing YOTA suffixes will be qrv in about 2 months of time.

Give a demonstration in a school or local club, gather together with your friends, grab a pizza and make some QSOs or enjoy a great pile-up. Let us all show this great hobby to the world. Because we know that there is youth in hamradio!

Feel free to make a QSO with the youngsters, they are happy to get some attention and exchange information. Licensed and unlicensed youth will be making QSOs, be aware this could be their first radio contact ever and give them a chance to experience a possible new hobby.

There will be an award program available as well. Work as many YOTA stations on as many bands as possible and be eligible for your Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum award for free. This program promotes the radio activity on the air waves and shows that there is and will be activity in the future. Visit our website www​.events​.ham​-yota​.com for more information about the awards rules.

If you are under the age of 26 get in contact with your countries youth coordinators and get on the air with these special calls during upcoming December. It will be a pleasure to work a lot of new youngsters on the bands!

We hope to crack 100.000 QSOs this December for the first time ever, so help us to achieve this goal set by the future of amateur radio – the Youngsters On The Air!

Feel free to follow the activities on our homepage as well as on our social media channels @hamyota.

The Czech radioclub “CRC” organized from 27. 9. to 29. 9. 2019 a subregional YOTA camp called “Weekend of Experiencies” which took part in the south part of Czech Republic with participation of 18 youngsters and 9 lectors from the OK and OM member societies.

The first Czech YOTA Subregional camp started on Friday nearly before 4 p.m. with the arrival of the first participants. Registration of newcomers lasted until 7 p.m. when Martin OK1VHB began with his introduction into HAM radio and HAM spirit. Program continued with a lecture of Honza OK1JD about physics, antennas, radios and QSO basics. All of the participants learned how to make a phone contact and in the end of the day everybody was able to understand the principles, so the night 80 m operation could follow. After a little stress before first CQs the small expectations of all lectors were quickly exceeded. Children were really outstanding and their honest enthusiasm and opened mind were a big surprise.
It’s important to say that this camp was for most of the kids their first touch with our hobby!

Believe me or not, our Saturday program started at 6 a.m. — kids are unstoppable! A lot of them couldn’t stay in bed and started to occupy the radio in the early morning.

Official Saturday’s program started with workshops. Participants were divided into 4 groups which rotated between five stands –

1) Fox hunting theory by Martin OK1VHB,
2) J‑Pole workshop by Jindra OK1NOR,
3) Electronics basics (teached by game) by Vlada OK2ZKR,
4) Sattelite operation by Leo OK2UUJ, and
5) DX, DXCC and contest basics by Honza OK1JD

After lunch we went out and tried ARDF connected with the SOTA activation. Every kids got receivers and their task was to find the fox hidden approx. three kilometers far from the camp. Despite our assurance that there is no need to get out of the road, of course kids decided to follow the signal exactly and set off straight into the impassable forest! Finish was nearby the watchtower were the HF and VHF SOTA set-ups were in advance prepared. The lookout tower showed to be the perfect place were to test J‑poles made in the morning. Unfortunately, it started to rain very heavily on the way back, so every kids had all of the clothes wet and the “responsible woman-part” of the organizational team (our CRC secretary Líba OK1LYL especially) made a decision to cancel all of the outside activities scheduled for the rest of the Saturday.

In the evening there was a OFF-air contest. At first it was necessary to teach the participants how to make a contest QSO. After two hours of practicing Honza OK1JD finally enounced that he is satisfied with the contesters performance and the big OFF-air contest could start. And it was amazing! Considering the most of the kids never heard about ham radio until Friday, it was simply unbelievable how they were suddenly able to make 3 – 4 QSO per minute.

The day ended with presentation about YOTA and YOTA summer camps by Martina OK2YLQ.

Last day of our camp started with presentation about PMR followed by PMR contest. Kids made a huge progress and it was joy to watch them how they are actually contesting so good they could in minute take part in the real ham contest.

After lunch we had a presentation “How to make DX on VHF, UHF and microwave” by Petr OK2ULQ.

We finished our camp with the awarding the winners of OFF-air contest and PMR contest. During the whole weekend there was a competition in painting OL19CAMP QSL card. The most beautiful one will be used as an official QSL card and will be distributed via bureau.

YOTA subregional is over and we must say everything went better than we expected! All of the kids were unbelievably enthusiastic and we could read in their faces, that ham radio impressed them enormously. We would like to thank our sponsors – IARU R1, Schark Technik a GES Electronics.

From the 11^th to the 17^th of August 2019 around 80 youngsters from 27 countries met in Bankya, near Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria to connect and learn from each other. The event was organised by the Bulgarian Federation of Amateur Radio as part of IARU Region 1’s “Youngsters On The Air” program, abbreviated as YOTA. The summer camp is held in a different country every year, over the last years it has been held in Austria, the United Kingdom, South Africa and many more. YOTA is growing quickly, this year’s summer camp demonstrated this especially well. The great majority of participants had never participated in a YOTA summer camp before, they are a new generation of young amateur radio enthusiasts. Another thing showing YOTA’s success is the number of girls at the camp, 40% of the participants were YLs, a percentage not often seen in amateur radio.

During the week youngsters did a variety of workshops such as building VHF and HF antennas, electronic kits, and much more. However the focus of this week’s presentations was on learning from each other: YOTA is shifting more and more towards a “youngsters for youngsters” approach where youngsters teach each other, rather than relying on older generations for input. A number of participating youth teams presented their youth activities. For example, the Finnish team gave an insight into the Nordics On The Air sub-regional camp, they not only showed how successful it was, but gave great tips and a good guide to organising such an event. The main goal of the YOTA summer camp is to give youngsters the ideas, knowledge and experiences they require to go back to their home country at the end of the week and start their own youth activities. The practical workshops are mostly easily reproducible so that youngsters could use them to introduce new young people into the hobby. For example youngsters might do a kit building workshop at a local school or use the antenna built at the camp to do a SOTA activation together with some new youngsters.

Sub-regional camps like those held in Finland, Italy and Germany in the last years are being organised more and more. For example, the next one is already being held in September in the Czech Republic, followed closely by a camp in the Netherlands in December. The idea behind a sub-regional camp is to bring together around 30 youngsters for an extended weekend, for example from Thursday until Sunday. Other than the YOTA summer camp, these camps are also used to bring new youngsters into the hobby. Un-licensed youngsters who know relatively little about amateur radio are invited to these camps to show them how interesting and fun amateur radio is.

The Italian youth team’s presentation showed very well that a sub-regional camp can be organised on quite a limited budget, their camp only cost 25 euros per participant per day. Furthermore they showed how such an event can re-vitalise a local radio club. The radio club supporting the event gained many new members as many of the participants of the camp did their license after the camp and joined the club. Furthermore the existing members of the club became more active as they organised the camp together.

A large number of youth teams now want to organise such an event, and during the coming months there will be many applications to IARU to hold a YOTA sub-regional camp. What the participants learnt at the YOTA summer camp will be an invaluable resource for organising sub-regional camps and youth activities on any scale.

A special thank you to BFRA for hosting this great event!