It was a brisk morning of late March with freezing temperatures when the youth
of Kosovo and their supporters were gathering to activate several stations
from capital Pristina and nearby city of Vushtrri in the 2016 CQ WPX Contest.

They activated six Kosovar prefixes, attracted WPX participants and in total 3000 QSOs were made. Those stations/prefixes were Z60A (SHRAK HQ) , Z61DX,
Z62FB, Z63ESC, Z64EEF (Tech University Club) and Z68BH.

The picture show their group as a whole while their YOTA leader, Elona, Z63ESC is
at the controls of their newly established Z60A station.

Radio equipment and antennas were donated by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL),
International DX Foundation (INDEXA), Force-12, U.K. DX Foundation and the OH-DX Foundation.

Those hams at the picture are Vjollca, Z61VB, SHARK president, Fehmi, Z62FB, SHARK secretary,
Driton, Z61DX, SHARK Board member, and Agim, Z61AS and Martti, OH2BH/Z68BH, assisting
SHARK in this activation. 

To follow up on the first successes in the Youth Contest Program of IARU R1 we will announce the new YCP contests of 2016. Youth members from IARU R1 member societies are invited to take part in a contest from so called “Top-Gun” stations. These young HAM’s will learn how to operate the contest station, improve their contest skills and will aim for the best results together as a team.
A youngster will probably be coming for the first time to the host country and will get the chance to experience this country and share amateur radio knowledge with local youngsters.

On this page you can read stories from past YCP activities.
To get the real YCP feeling check out this movie of 4O3A’s participation. 

For more information and the application form visit this link: http://​www​.ham​-yota​.com/​y​o​u​t​h​-​c​o​n​t​e​s​t​i​n​g​-​p​r​o​g​r​am/

YOTA December month is about to start. 38 YOTA callsigns in total will be active from schools, scoutings or just used by young radio amateurs under the age of 26 years. Try to make a QSO with the youngsters, be aware that some of them are new to the radio hobby, while others are more experienced. Goal is to show this amazing radio amateur hobby to youth and to have more “youngsters on the air”.
The YOTA stations will be active throughout the entire month of December. All info about the stations is available on this page.

Award:
There is a special award available for working YOTA stations.
In total there can be 4 awards achieved:
Bronze: worked 5 YOTA stations
Silver: worked 10 YOTA stations
Gold: worked 15 YOTA stations
Platinum: worked 25 YOTA stations
Awards can be requested through this link.

The 6^th edition of Youngsters On The Air will take place in Austria. OeVSV (Österreichischer Versuchssenderverband), which will celebrate their 90 years anniversary, will be hosting next YOTA summer event. 75 Youngsters will be invited to travel to the Austrian Alps to enjoy a program with many new elements compared to previous years.
It will be a great experience for all participants which they will never forget. To get a better feeling about this, have a look at the gallery from previous events.

When: 16 – 23 July 2016

Participants:
Each IARU member society is invited to take part with a team. A team consist of maximum 5 persons, 4 Persons with the age 15 – 25 years and one person is dedicated as team leader.
* All participants, including team leaders, should take part in the entire program.
* We ask member societies to select motivated participants
Team leaders:
* Younger team leaders are preferred (age 18 – 30 years)
* A team leader should be in a good health condition, which means that they can take part in the entire program and take care of their team members. 

Location: Wagrain, south of Salzburg (OE2)

Fees: travel costs to Salzburg airport or Wagrain and €25 per participant

All other costs (accomodation, food, activities) will be covered, main funder of the event is IARU R1.
If your member society is interested to participate, please respond to austria@​ham-​yota.​com by 31 December 2015 by sending in the application form. There is a limit of 75 participants. Make sure you will apply in time. We will announce the participating countries shortly after the deadline.
For any questions, please contact austria@​ham-​yota.​com

9A1A contest location is in village Kozjača, located about 40km SE from Zagreb or 20 km from Zagreb Airport. Station is constructed for Multi – Multi operation, and such installation permits MS, M2 or SO SB contest participation. Station set up includes to be on air in SO SB category in same time on all six bands.

There are 4 antenna towers, 2 times 36 meters, one 40m and one 26m height.
Shack has 62,5 m² including operating room, small bath room, kitchen and sleeping room.
The whole infrastructure is built in accordance to Croatian law. It passed „Technical Acceptance Test” and it has „Usage permit“ issued by appropriate authorities.
That means „No problem with any possible complaints from neighbours“ !

Antenna installation has 36 various antennas. Antenna systems are selected by antenna switchers, antenna rotation is in use in rare situations.

9A1A has two contest teams.
The first one is consisted by all club members having good contesting skills, and team includes our youngsters too. 9A1A call is in use. Guest operators from all over the world are always welcome.

Second team is youngsters’ team.
They started in amateur radio as second grade students of Technical school Ruđer Bošković, Zagreb. Some of them are now on University, some of them are still school students. In contests they are using call 9A1RBZ. They are in age between 16 and 20. 9A1RBZ is call for station installed in school. Croatian Amateur Radio sub law permits use of any call on other location with power limits given in licence of host station, and that is why they are using 9A1RBZ call.

9A1RBZ members have been world winners as team or single band operators in EA RTTY Contest 2014, SCC RTTY Championship 2014, YO DX HF Contest 2014. They have been on top list two times in UBA DX Contest SSB, years 2014 and 2015. Claimed scores in SCC RTTY Championship 2015 shows to be world winner again.

From this year starting with SAC SSB Contest 9A1RBZ will participate in IARU Region 1 „Youth Contesting Program“ — YCP.

In SAC SSB 9A1RBZ team members are :
OE3FTA, Florian
HA8RT,Tomi
9A7MIM, Mihaela
9A7MSM, Marija
9A7CDZ, Domagoj 
9A5CPP, Petar

Maybe some others will join them.

Youngsters from IARU R1 are welcome to participate in 9A1RBZ contest team. Next contest planned is EA RTTY Contest 2016.

Actions will be coordinated with Lisa, PA2LS IARU R1 Youth WG Chairman.