This Saturday (19/07/2025) saw the 2nd round of the Youngsters on the Air (YOTA) contest. This 12 hour contest gives the chance for younger operators to speak to experienced contesters to get a feel for the format and pace of contesting.

As a young operator (21 years old), I had the pleasure of giving away 11 points per station per band, and operated for the full 12 hours. My station config and details are below:

Usually during a contest, the bands can be quite chaotic and it is hard to find a clear frequency. When you do find one, it’s common for another station to start calling over the top of you. Luckily, the YOTA contest encouraged some of the best contesting etiquette I’ve heard on air. Operators were very patient with all stations, particularly YOTA operators.

Throughout the day I heard a variety of operators from all different ages. The oldest operator I spoke to was 90 years old and the youngest was only 7 years old (operating using her father’s callsign and supervision). This event gives a great chance for operators to get their children involved and hopefully encourage the next generation into the hobby.

Conditions were quite difficult on the day due to varied solar activity and propagation. Quite unusually, 20m died off as usual but opened up again to inter-Europe later in the evening. 40m was poor throughout the day and only started to pick up around 1900UTC.

You can find out more about the YOTA contest HERE(link opens in new tab).