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UPCOMING: December YOTA Month 2021
· Events, News, Youth General · Mario, EA1JAY

Press Release by Youngsters On The Air

Youth Working Group
International Amateur Radio Union
Region 1


Wednesday, 24.11.2021

December YOTA Month – DYM Activity 2021

The entire month of December, several youngsters under the age of 26 will become active with YOTA suffixes in their callsigns. The idea behind this is to show the amateur radio hobby to youth and to encourage youngsters to be active on the ham radio waves.

Normally, YOTA stations are active throughout the year from YOTA summer and subregional camps. This year, however, due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, all scheduled camps and other in-person events had to be cancelled again. As a result, there were only few opportunities to hear YOTA stations on the bands.

Hence, we as Team YOTA want to show the world that the youngsters still want and can be active on the bands during this difficult time. Help your local youngsters to get on the air throughout the December YOTA Month following your national health guidelines. Either you are a supporting elmer or under 26 years yourself, contact your society’s youth coordinator to be active with your national YOTA callsign. If your society did not apply for one yet, feel free to encourage them to do so of course. It will be a pleasure to work a lot of new youngsters on the bands!

Every ham radio operator can support the youth worldwide! By making a QSO with them, they can improve their skills on air and learn more about geography and ham radio abbreviations, among others. The youngsters will be 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.

As every year, there is again an award program available. Work as many YOTA stations on as many bands and modes 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 events​.ham​-yota​.com for more information about the award rules.

Last year we had high hopes with the QSO goal of 130.000 QSOs. With the help of our global youngsters within amateur radio, we absolutely crushed the goal with nearly 138.000 QSOs achieved by 46 stations. This year we are aiming for the same target. So, participate in December YOTA Month, and help us to achieve this goal again in December 2021!

Feel free to follow the activities on our homepage as well as on our social media channels @hamyota and @hamyota_official and update yourself at events​.ham​-yota​.com.

On behalf of the DYM Organizing Committee,

–
73 Philipp, DK6SP

Chair
Youth Working Group
International Amateur Radio Union
Region 1

Download Area:

Press Release as PDF document:
Press_Release_DYM_2021_20201124

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CQWW introduces new YOUTH Overlays
· News, Youth General · Mario, EA1JAY

The YOUTH Overlay in the recent CQWW SSB contest was a big success already!
The CQWW Director (K1AR) reached out to the IARU R1 Youth Working Group and reported that over 100 YOUTH logs from all over the world were submitted within the log deadline!

We think, that this was definitely a good start for the first event.

Therefore, just a little reminder to be forwarded to all interested youngsters as CQWW CW is upcoming in less than a week [27th + 28th November 2021] — already.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — —

CQWW committee stated earlier that:

1) We have created a new YOUTH overlay that will be available to all competitors who are 25 years old or under, effective on the dates of the contest. The Cabrillo overlay format will be CATEGORY-OVERLAY: YOUTH. In support of this change, Youth overlay entries will be highlighted in the results (as is currently done for Classic and Rookies). In addition, plaques will be available for the winners.

Read more about the current rule changes here.
These changes will apply in SSB and CW parts of CQWW from 2021!

We are also proud to announce that several IARU Youth Working Groups, YOTA Teams and individuals worldwide will sponsor the accompanying plaques for this new YOUTH overlay.
Check out all available plaques for the 2021 events here.

Thanks to all involved into the process to making this happen!

One of the few things left is to plan your CQWW effort now and win the new YOUTH plaques!

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CQWW introduces new Youth Overlays
· HF, News, Youth General · Mario, EA1JAY

CQWW committee stated earlier that:

1) We have created a new YOUTH overlay that will be available to all competitors who are 25 years old or under, effective on the dates of the contest. The Cabrillo overlay format will be CATEGORY-OVERLAY: YOUTH. In support of this change, Youth overlay entries will be highlighted in the results (as is currently done for Classic and Rookies). In addition, plaques will be available for the winners.

Read more about the current rule changes here.
These changes will apply in SSB and CW parts of CQWW from 2021!

We are also proud to announce that several IARU Youth Working Groups, YOTA Teams and individuals worldwide will sponsor the accompanying plaques for this new YOUTH overlay.
Check out all available plaques for the 2021 events here.

Thanks to all involved into the process to making this happen!

One of the few things left is to plan your CQWW effort now and win the new YOUTH plaques!

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IARU R1 Youth Working Group connecting with Scouts in Europe
· News, Youth General · Mario, EA1JAY

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Team YOTA established a monthly online series called “YOTA Online”. In one of its episodes the main topic covered was the “JOTA/JOTI” scouts event.

Through this one hour live-show we, the IARU Region 1 Youth Working Group, connected to the former International Commissioner of the RdP (Ring deutscher Pfadfinder) towards the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), Marcus Klapdor.

Through lots of online meetings and phone calls we were invited to join the German JOTA/JOTI Headquarters during the worldwide event held during 15th — 17th October 2021. Thus, our preparations for putting up a reasonable amateur radio setup for HF and QO100 operations started soon. With the very obliging help of fellow hams we were able to put together and operate the station DL0JOTA. This special callsign was brought on the air at the “Castle Rieneck” near Frankfurt, Germany, by a small delegation of the IARU Region 1 Youth Working Group.

While around 20 scouts from all over Germany joined this event, also international active Scouts were present at the location. Claudia Großer (DC2CL), Philipp Springer (DK6SP) and Markus Großer (DL8GM) were very happy to introduce these commited people into the world of amateur radio and its youth working within IARU Region 1. Further, good questions were asked by all attending and were answered in the best way possible. Good talks with the Chairperson of the European Scout Committee within WOSM, Lars Kramm, among others have been very informative and target-oriented. We, as the Youth Working Group within IARU Region 1 will keep this good contact into the committee and will negotiate about future joint-events and cooperations again soon. 

The Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) program included activities like operating a HF radio or via the geo-stationary satellite QO-100 on side-band or digital. Though, the best response from the attending Scouts was the presentation of morse code. We were very impressed what these young talented people already knew and asked in detail with lots of emphasize. Also, skeds with other worldwide Scout groups in different countries like Luxembourg, The Netherlands, England among others were successfully completed. Furthermore, we prepared a small ARDF fox hunt to show off the big variety of our common hobby.

The organizers of this Scout get-together took care of the Jamboree On The Internet (JOTI) part of the event themselves. They programmed little Micro:Bit computers, chatted with worldwide Scouts or printed 3D-models of antennas etc..

In summary, it can be said that the trusting cooperation so far has been a complete success. This was confirmed by the first personal meeting of those involved in the project and is to be continued and steadily expanded in the future. Stay tuned!

  • IARU R1 Youth WG delegation together with one of the event organizers
  • Hexbeam built on the on top of the castle tower at the location
  • DL8GM and DK6SP bringing up the Hexbeam
  • Difficult equipment transportation
  • Hexbeam on top of the castle tower
  • 80m ARDF fox hunt
  • Scouts doing ARDF instructed by the IARU R1 Youth WG
  • Scouts doing ARDF instructed by the IARU R1 Youth WG 
  • 3D printing during JOTA/JOTI
  • HF station DL0JOTA
  • IARU R1 Youth WG delegation at DL0JOTA
  • Scout scarf handed over by the Scouts to the IARU R1 Youth WG delegation
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UPDATE: COVID-19 Situation and YOTA Activities
· EC, News, Youth General · Mario, EA1JAY

Despite the COVID-19 situation having improved over the past few months on a global scale, the development and dynamics of the pandemic remain unpredictable. The same unpredictability goes for regulations regarding the pandemic, which in many cases severely limit the ability to hold in-person events with international participants.

To deal with the pandemic situation, an event cancellation policy was introduced earlier this year (https://​www​.iaru​-r1​.org/​2​0​2​1​/​c​o​v​i​d​-​1​9​-​s​i​t​u​a​t​i​o​n​-​a​n​d​-​y​o​t​a​-​c​a​m​ps/), which introduced a four month deadline for a go/no-go decision for in-person events. This four month deadline has however turned out to slightly too far into the future for a reliable prediction.

Accordingly, the IARU R1 Youth WG, in collaboration with the IARU R1 Executive Committee, has made the following arrangement:

Youth events scheduled within 2021 will remain in the calendar for the time being. We, the IARU R1 Youth WG, will review the forecast evolution of the pandemic sufficiently prior to each event and make an announcement about whether it will take place. Generally this will be three months prior to the scheduled date. Those planning to attend should thus have sufficient time to make the necessary bookings and travel arrangements.

IARU Region 1’s intent is to ensure that any events which take place do so in an environment which respects national requirements for pandemic control and which does not place at risk the health and well-being of those participating.

The IARU Region 1 Youth Working Group

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