All of the reasons given so far really only apply to recent years say 1990
and later. I remember calling CQ for hours on phone in 1962-3 with no
replies. There were much fewer contesters back then as the current
population of hams has tripled. When a DX station answered he said I was
loud and often was his first Mississippi.
Jump forward to 1970 and Single band 10 in the CQ SSB Contest (Now called
the WPX Contest). Band conditions were similar to this year. My score was
High NA and was the record for 8 years.
SM5BLA told me he got tired of hearing me call CQ. 20 hours of operation
netted just over 500 Q's. The world population of hams has jumped and the
USA had about 400K hams.
I ran the Drake Line, NCL-2000, and a Razor 7 El beam designed by VE3BMV.
I was K5MDX before 1973 and my first Contest as K4JRB was the CQ WW SSB in
1974. My score was the High USA Operating SB 10. I made 274 QSO's and was
pushed by another local. Doc W5PQA operating ZM7DA said he heard the two GA
stations for hours on end.
With fewer stations on a lot of contesters got bored. I remember talking to
W1PDF (RI) and WA2 (can't remember his call) who became W2PV. They both
said why make the effort with activity so low. Once you had worked the
first group of stations pickings were very slim on SSB.
What made the difference? The rise of JA activity (W7RM could run them for
hours including the thousands of low power operators). Clubs in the USA and
Europe got hams interested in contesting and actually on the air. Many got
on to work new states or DXCC entities and got hooked. This has continued
today.
You can work more stations in 6 hours than a winning CQ WW effort (40 hours
plus) in 1967.
Moving to computer logging and getting rid of the cumbersome hand logging in
the early 1990's allowed contesting to make a quantum leap (mostly thanks to
CT).
That is my take
73 Dave K4JRB Ex K5MDX
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