Japan has to be one of the toughest places in the world to contest from.
(OK, at least one of the toughest mid latitude locations). It is about 7 time
zones from Europe, 10 from the USA, with most of the space in between being
either water or uncivilized. Nothing much to the south. There are long periods
when neither NA nor EU are available on any band. Most contests end at a
time when you're supposed to be at work on Monday morning. Nobody out there
speaks your language. For those nearby countries, it's a very long way for
anybody from somewhere other than Japan to travel for a DXpedition, and in the
big
contests those who do get screwed in the scoring for working you. And unless
you are very wealthy, you don't have space for contest grade antennas.
At the peak of the sunspot cycle back in the 70's there were lots of
newcomers in Japan who would operate contests to chase DX or otherwise see what
they
could do. But over time it became very tedious repeatedly beating one's
head against the wall, so they moved onto other things, whether just chasing
interesting DX on their own schedule, or doing other things outside ham radio.
At least this is how I might think if I were in Japan. Do those who live
there think the same way?
73 - Jim K8MR
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