On behalf of the Young Amateurs Radio Club ([YARC](https://yarc.world)) I'm pleased to announce the Youth Contesting Program YARC’s Youth Contesting Program (YCP) is a weekend program for groups of young amateur radio contesters throughout the US and Canada to meet up at a nearby-as-possible “big gun stations” during the 2019 CQ World-Wide WPX Contest taking place 30-31 March 2019. It will hopefully enable a new dimension of the hobby to young hams who have contested a little before, and set a new precedent for the welcoming of a new generation of radiosport aficionados. It works like this – we will attempt to pair a small group (up to 4) of young contesters interested in operating with a “big gun” station owner interested in hosting the youth group. The contesters will operate from the station, and the host has the option to help the youth improve their skills, provide advice, and even operate alongside. We will try to keep it such that young hams will only require a relatively short drive (ideally no more than 5 hours) to keep travel costs low. As such, this will require the participation of as many operators and hosts as possible, but it might so happen that a valid match may not exist. We will try our best and work to make this a better program in the future! YARC YCP is inspired by the efforts of YOTA's YCP (https://www.ham-yota.com/youth-contesting-program/), as well as Team Exuberance (https://www.gofundme.com/team-exuberance) and we hope to inspire a big chunk of young hams into becoming the greatest contesters of the 21st century. If you're a young ham (or know a young ham) (under age 27 or so) with at least a little bit of contesting experience, and you'd be interested in spending March 30-31 (CQ World-Wide WPX SSB (https://www.cqwpx.com/rules.htm)) at a contest-grade ham radio station, OR if you're the owner of such a station, sign up at https://yarc.world/ycp/ Note – because we’re trying to keep costs low by making this a drivable event for our young ops, we can’t promise that you’ll be selected as a host or operator, especially if either no young ops signup nearby your station or there’s no station near young operators. Since this is our first try, we probably have a lot to learn about this, so bear with us! Thanks, Sterling, N0SSC YARC Programs & Outreach Dude
Sounds great! Looks like we'll have some other youth competition in the WPX As the organizer of Team Exuberance https://www.gofundme.com/team-exuberance, I'm really looking forward to this amazing experience of operating a contest alongside other youth buddies. I hope this idea grows and we continue to have similar events like this in the future. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported Team Exuberance and especially to Tim for opening his station to us, and to the other kids that I will be operating with ( David - VE7DZO, Chris - KD8YVJ, Levi - W6BQ, Tomi - HA8RT, Bryant - KG5HVO, and Marty - NN1C ). I will be giving a presentation in the contest forum at Hamvention 2019 about the whole contest and everything. Hope to see you all there! I'm really looking forward to this and hope to work y'all! If you hear us, please give us a call! KM4ATT Violetta
