9A Summer Camp Report

TTT Report

The YOTA Summer Camp in Croatia was a great success! The young radio amateurs who attended learned a lot and had a great time. Some of the highlights of the camp included workshops on topics such as carbon-neutral operation, antenna assembling, electronics, digital modes, etc. There were also talks from guest speakers (e.g 2 Japan operators: JE6WUD & JO4ISY), and excursions (IOTA, COTA, SOTA...) to interesting places around Croatia. We released 2 articles about our surprising activities in the camp: one about operating the stations at 4AM and another showing a QRP setup and some information on the 4m band.

This first YOTA summer camp was a game changer for me and all my team. The organization was huge and insanely well managed by a brave team of 9A operators and workshop volunteers. My favorite workshop was programming ARDF Wabbit Beacons. It was super fun and I was happy to help people in difficulty. That’s why I shared my wabbit program into a repo, so everyone could use it and customize it to their own needs. Also, I made interesting exchanges about digital protocols: it was a win-win between team Spain and team France. A huge thanks to team Spain for their help in setting up my TETRA radios for amateur use. This camp was awesome. I really hope to see all the friends I met next year.

Jules F4IEY

I have waited since 2020 to do the YOTA summer camp, and this week was way beyond my expectations. I was able to learn exciting new things, like soldering (my first time) and the use of FT8 mode. I'm very interested in radio propagation (it is what excites me the most in radio) and FT8 is a good way to understand how it changes with time, solar activity and frequencies. Indeed, we just need to receive weak signals to make a QSO in FT8 mode, even if propagation is poor. Moreover, it has been two years since I have done radio because of my studies. I was able to rediscover the pleasure of communicating with the whole world and performing pile ups with extraordinary equipment. Contacting the Aussies early in the morning gave me incredible emotions that I hadn't felt in years! Sharing my emotions with young people of my age, all passionate about the same hobby was a unique experience. I plan to come back next year ;)

Paul F4ILV

I wasn’t expecting to have such a fun week. It was the first time I met youngsters with the same hobby. I enjoyed getting to know what other youngsters do in other countries, especially niche parts of the hobby. We showed P25 radios to other teams and the Spanish showed us their Tetra infrastructure. I also enjoyed having access to all of these stations. It was my first time operating on QO-100 and operating the 40m 4el beam at 4am from the remote station was truly amazing. I never got such a pileup of Americans on 40m. I also enjoyed my first time at ARDF even though the power of the TX was lacking a bit. The best presentation was the solar setup. I’ve learnt a lot on the subject with Vex, as the ham community online hasn’t dug up much on the subject.

Maxime F4IQN

To be honest, thoughts about the TTT program are mixed in our French team. On one hand, there were some excellent presentations with clear and relevant content. On the other hand, there were also topics that could have been simplified, less rigid and more “straight to the point” to get more attention. But overall, the three of us got the ideas about what is needed in France to promote amateur radio activity. In France, the situation is critical: we do not know how to promote amateur radio activity in general. There is a weak if non-existent communication on social media about what is done in various radio clubs, which is a shame because if we dig further in this mess, some really great quality content can be found. Therefore, the most important thing to do right now is starting with the basics:

• Visibility on social media: by creating an Instagram and/or a simple blog page dedicated to general activities for both youngsters and OMs (and the national amateur radio website also needs a complete relifting, it looks so old…)
• Presentation platforms: As the Japanese demonstrated in their “presentation about presentation”, a good start could also be trying to meet up with radio related topics to talk about. In France, this is the activity that works best. For years, we have been organizing events such as technical Saturdays called “Samedis Techniques” at F6KGL radio club. And just like the Japanese team did during the pandemic lockdown, we started using Discord to expand the audience of these presentations and it worked very well! We are now convinced that we need to carry on with this activity.
• Gather French young operators: as we only are a small group of 15 people for now, the ideas could be to schedule minor events between us (such as we did with FSK challenge) and later take part of a regional or national camp near the french “top gun” station F6KOP.

We are more than determined to make France stand out and we know this is going to take a long time. Great magic always begins with small things. Furthermore, with all the respect for amateur pioneers, we need to wipe out the bad image of old, grumpy, angry and conservative operators, preventing new people from wanting to get into the hobby. We need to renew this image that has been buried by this previous generation!

The participants also had the opportunity to make new friends (so did we^^) and contacts from all over the world. Overall, it was a great experience for everyone involved.

Special thanks

I want to personally thank Mihaela 9A3WW for believing in us, her motivation and the courage she gave to our team.

Of course, a very special thanks to Philipp DK6SP for making all this happen and making it an unforgettable experience.

Also thanks to Richard 9A1TT for organizing and allowing us to use powerful HF rigs and remote stations for working people all around the world…And doing funny pranks by contacting the actual YOTA stations. Thanks to Vedran 9A7PBV for giving all his energy by showing us the whole potential of a solar panel setup.

A huge thanks to the whole Tesla Team for being with us. Keep it up, you are the best!