AO4YOTA - Spain Subregional Camp

AO4YOTA

I had previously attended a YOTA camp in 9A and was excited to experience a subregional camp in Spain. The following report details my experiences at the camp.

Jules F4IEY

Participants

The subregional camp was designed for 30-50 participants, but unfortunately, only 6 individuals attended the camp. These participants were

• 4K6VS: Valia
• DL8GM: Marcus
• EA1JAY: Mario
• EA1JBE (now EA1MZ): Dario
• EA3HUJ: Daniel
• and F4IEY: Jules.

Antennas

Two antennas were already installed when I arrived at the campsite. One was a multi-band hexbeam linked to a 100 W Kenwood TS480, and the other was a dual-band vertical antenna. However, the vertical antenna was not used due to issues with the FT897 behaving strangely and high SWR. Therefore, we only had one HF station for all participants, which was a significant difference from the antenna farm and FlexRadio transceivers we had at the previous camp.

Activities

Despite the limited equipment, we had fun together operating the station, attending workshops, and doing outside QRP activities. We even installed a dipole at night to use 40m. My favorite workshop was on APRS, presented by Mario EA1JAY and Dario EA1JBE. However, the other workshops were not as interesting, and the presenters relied on full textual slideshows that were barely readable.

Station Operation

I was excited about operating the special call to make some noise on the air, and I was the only operator who could run CW. I made approximately 275 QSOs, mostly in CW and a few in SSB, including a few DX stations from Japan, Trinidad, and Australia.

Conclusion

The YOTA subregional camp in Spain was a nice experience, despite the low number of participants and limited equipment. The weekend gave me many ideas and a clear vision of what to do next, especially if I want to organize a subregional camp in France. I enjoyed meeting the main URE members and reconnecting with Mario and Marcus, and this experience will be added to my list of great moments.