07/19/2016
Two young ARRL members are among the more than 100 attending the Youngsters On
The Air (YOTA[1]) camp in the Austrian mountains this week. Sterling Coffey,
N0SSC, of St Louis, Missouri, and Sam Rose, KC2LRC, of Syracuse, New York, are
the first two Americans to take part in the week-long YOTA camp. Participants
not only enjoy a variety of Amateur Radio activities, they hone their
electronics and contesting skills and make new international friends.
"Being at YOTA is really something beyond amazing," Coffey tweeted on July 17.
Begun in 2011, YOTA has grown exponentially since, and camps have been held in
Romania, The Netherlands-Belgium, Estonia, Finland, and Italy. Since the IARU
Region 1 General Conference in Albena, Bulgaria, in 2014, YOTA has been an
official International Amateur Radio Union Region 1 (IARU-R1) activity. Open to
participants ranging in age from 15 to 25, the sixth YOTA in Austria is the
largest ever and the first to include young hams from the US and Asia. The
Northern California DX Foundation (NCDXF[2]) subsidized the two Americans'
participation in YOTA 2016. The Yasme Foundation[3] supported the teams from
Ethiopia and Tunisia at YOTA 2016.
Rose last year inaugurated the Collegiate Ham Radio Operators[4] Facebook
group, aimed at college ham radio club members interested in sharing and
collaborating on college ham radio activities. He also spoke on "Advantages of
College Ham Radio Clubs" at the Hamvention 2016 Youth Forum. Coffey, who
majored in electrical engineering at the Missouri University of Science and
Technology in Rolla, is a past ARRL Youth Editor who handled the
"Youth@HamRadio.Fun" web column on the ARRL website. He served as a member of
ARRL Ad-Hoc Committee on Youth in the Second Century, prior to the ARRL
Centennial.
YOTA 2016 features a full slate of Amateur Radio activities. A successful
Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS[5]) contact took place
on July 18 with astronaut Jeff Williams KD5TVQ on the International Space
Station.
The Austrian Amateur Radio Society OeVSV[6], which is celebrating its 90th
anniversary, is hosting the YOTA 2016 summer camp near Salzburg. OE2YOTA has
been on air on various bands and modes. YOTA 2016 continues until July 23.
[1] http://www.ham-yota.com/austria/
[2] http://www.ncdxf.org/
[3] http://www.yasme.org/
[4] https://www.facebook.com/groups/1607563406175091/
[5] http://www.ariss.org/
[6] http://www.oevsv.at/
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