A huge thanks to everyone watching the first YOTA online session on Thursday, 28.05.2020. The successful session gathered more than 600 unique viewers from all continents except Oceania and Antarctica, as far as we could track. Considering this we can say that the event was indeed taking place worldwide. The session was streamed live on Facebook and YouTube. For the first time ever, we have been streaming on Twitch as well. Therefore, it was a great success with a total of 30 unique viewers on this new platform bearing in mind that this was our first time using it. We also had the opportunity to stream via the Es-Hail QO-100 geostationary satellite from a QTH in Belgium using ATV mode where we received good reports as well.

The event itself begun at 1800 UTC on all platforms. After a warm welcome and a short explanation of the significance of the event, we headed over to our main topic of the day, Youth Contest Program, also known as YCP. Claudia DC2CL and Tom F4HWS, as participants of the events at LX7I and DM9EE, had talked about the program itself and answered audience questions afterwards. Later general follower questions regarding different YOTA related topics were answered by the members of the working group. After about an hour later at 1900 UTC the night was sealed with a YOTA merchandise prize draw which was attended by around 70 people. With this first YOTA online session came to a very successful end.

The YOTA online event was created by a multinational team consisting of nine people from six countries: Monty OE3VVU from Austria, Pieter ON1GPS from Belgium, Martina OK2YLQ from Czech Republic, Otava OH3OT from Finland, Claudia DC2CL, Philipp DK6SP & Markus DL8GM from Germany and Lisa PA2LS from the Netherlands.
Dozens of hours of planning were used, and several team calls were held to make the free YOTA broadcast available to everybody all over the world.

For all of those who watched the event either live or afterwards, we kindly ask you for feedback. Please fill in our Google form or text us directly on our social media channels. By filling the form you can also suggest topics for our future YOTA online sessions.

Our second edition of YOTA online will take place on Thursday, 25.06.2020, at 1800 UTC. Therefore, save the date already. Our team is working on an interesting new main topic to be presented in the show. We will also answer YOTA community questions again. So, if you always wanted to ask a question regarding YOTA – this is your time! Let us know by contacting us on our social media channels or by email. In the end we prepared another prize draw for all participants.
See you all next time!

Are you ready for today’s first YOTA online session? Did you already set your alarms to 28.05.2020 — 1800 UTC? 

Here are the links to our livestreams:
Youtube — https://​youtu​.be/​6​x​K​n​d​2​U​N​9z0
Twitch — https://​www​.twitch​.tv/​h​a​m​y​ota
Facebook — https://​www​.facebook​.com/​h​a​m​y​o​t​a​/​l​i​ve/
Instagram — Check the livestream within our story 

If you have questions while the event takes place don’t hesitate to ask them. Please keep in mind that we will be monitoring only the chats on Facebook, Youtube and Twitch while we are streaming live. All other comments will be answered afterwards for sure.
https://​www​.ham​-yota​.com/​l​i​v​e​s​t​r​e​a​m​s​-​y​o​t​a​-​o​n​l​i​ne/

We hope to welcome you later tonight on the show!

WHAT?
The Youth Working Group within the IARU Region 1 created a newly developed program called “YOTA online”. In these monthly gatherings we will try to bring the YOTA feeling towards the online community and spread the word that there is youth in ham radio. A YOTA team consisting of active youngsters will present different topics, while answering questions from the community. There will also be a section where different recent YOTA event hosts will be able to present the highlights, while also giving participants the opportunity to share stories. This will be followed by a Q&A session with the group presenting. At the end of the event we will also do a prize raffle amongst all participants.

WHY?
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic all planned YOTA events until September 2020 had unfortunately been cancelled or postponed. This included, for example, the Summer Camps in IARU Regions 1, 2 and 3, as well as Subregional Camps, Youth Contest Programs, and our presence at the HAMRADIO 2020 in Friedrichshafen. Taking this into account and the fact that lots of youngsters want to join YOTA activities each year gave us the idea to create an interactive format to gather youngsters online on a regular basis.

WHERE?
The first YOTA online event will take place on 28^th May 2020 from 1800 UTC as a livestream and will take around one hour. The complete session will be recorded and available online at any time. Of course, the participation is free and open to anyone who wants to take part worldwide. We will share the link to the livestream one day prior to the event on our homepage and social media channels.

We hope to have the chance to welcome you in a few days during our YOTA online event!