AR Newsline Names 2004 Young Ham of the Year

Andrea Hartlage (KG4IUM) named 2004 Amateur Radio Newsline™ Young Ham Of The Year

(Los Angeles, CA) – She is 15 years old, about to become a sophomore in Grayson High School in Grayson, Georgia where she holds a 96.41 Grade Point Average and has dedicated the last four years of her young life to serving the needs of her community and its youth through Amateur Radio. For that reason and many others, Andrea Hartlage (KG4IUM) has been selected to be the recipient of the 2004 Amateur Radio Newsline™ Young Ham of the Year Award.

Andrea was first licensed in 2000 and currently holds the Amateur Extra class which is the top of the line. She credits her father with kindling her interest.

"My dad interested me, he introduced it to me, Scott Hartlage, KF4PWI and he introduced me to Amateur Radio - I guess it was four years ago," she says. "I just sort of got interested in the public service side and
I also serve as net control and I enjoy doing that and all the other things." (A "net control" is the person in charge of a group of ham operators performing emergency or public service communications.)       

Andrea has been quite active since getting her FCC license just four years ago.

"I do a lot of public service with parades and different types of marathons and things like that," she says. "I write the youth column for ARRL website...I'm assistant section manager for youth of the Georgia section and I'm a member of several local radio clubs." The ARRL is the American Radio Relay League, the National Association for Amateur Radio, based in Newington, Connecticut.

Among her many achievements, Andrea has served as an instructor at J.E. Richards Middle School Amateur Radio Club as part of the “ARRL Amateur Radio Education & Technology Program.” The program's goal is to improve the quality of instruction by providing an educationally sound curriculum focused on wireless communications. The project emphasizes integration of technology, math, science, geography, writing, speaking and social responsibility within a global society. Andrea's instructional work
at the J.E. Richards Middle School Amateur Radio Club was part of the pilot program.

But Andrea's work in the area of recruiting youngsters into the Amateur Radio hobby goes far beyond her local community. She is an internationally known writer with a monthly on-line column titled “ This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ” and also authors a similar bi-monthly column for the Young Ladies' Radio League (YLRL) Newsletter, YL-Harmonics. As a public speaker she has appeared at the Dayton Hamvention Youth Forum in Ohio and continues to promote the hobby to youngsters at local hamfests, club meetings, and other public events.

In the area of public service, Andrea has already completed the ARRL Emergency Communications training course and serves as the network control station for several regularly scheduled on-the-air emergency communications training sessions. These include networks sponsored by the Gwinnett Amateur Radio Society and the Gwinnett County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES). Andrea also was the control station of the GEMA/ ARES Net for activation during the G8 Summit Conference. On the technical side, Andrea has already used the skill she learned through Amateur Radio to build communications gear for the September 2003 World Canoeing and Kayaking event.

Andrea is a member of several prestigious hobby radio organizations including the ARRL and YLRL mentioned above, the FISTS Club (an international organization dedicated to the preservation of the historic Morse Code), the Gwinnett County Amateur Radio Emergency Service, the Gwinnett Amateur Radio Society (GARS), the Alford Memorial Radio Club, the A-1 Operator’s Club and scouting Venture
Crew 73.

As to her future, Andrea says Amateur Radio and all the opportunities it has given her, also has opened her eyes to some career possibilities.

"I'm possibly thinking about some kind of journalism and writing these (ARRL) columns helps me develop writing skills," she says. "And, I'm also thinking about some type of communication field that I really enjoy, like, for example, serving as net control and learning how to communicate effectively."

At the end of her freshmen high school year, Andrea had all A’s, placed 7th in her class of 664,. She takes all “Gifted Level” courses and will be taking “Advanced Placement” next year.