New Azores Collective Brings School Amateur Radio Clubs Together

Getting young people into amateur radio often comes down to having the right support network behind a school club — and the Azores has just built exactly that.

It's already been a busy year for school amateur radio clubs in Portugal, and particularly in the Azores, where clubs have recently started coordinating joint activities and sharing knowledge through a newly formed group known as RERA.

What Is RERA?

RERA stands for Rede Escolar de Radioamadorismo dos Açores — the Azores School Amateur Radio Network. It was established last June, at a meeting coordinated by Ana Braga, CU2YK, a teacher at Capelas Integrated Basic School in the Azores.

Beyond its core educational goals, RERA has a couple of wider ambitions too: raising the profile of amateur radio as a public service resource, and helping other schools across the region set up their own student amateur radio clubs — effectively acting as a support structure for the next wave of school clubs to come.

What's Next

RERA is planning its first regional meeting for the end of the 2027 school year, giving teachers, students, and the cooperating ham radio operators who support them a chance to present their projects and share what they've learned from their first year working together.

It's a neat model — one school's network effort becoming the scaffolding for several more — and well worth watching as RERA's first full year plays out.