I wonder if the survey groups that are polled tend to be from the higher
density population areas. This alone would bias the survey against
contesters. I would be very interested in how they choose the survey
population. Living most of my life in the midwest I have gotten used to the
fact that our opinions don't count as much as those from either coast
.
At 10:33 AM 2/13/02, you wrote:
>Some excerpts from messages N4ZR and I exchanged last month...
>
> >At 10:00 AM 1/10/2002 -0500, N4ZR wrote:
> >
> >>It's worth remembering that a poll of a little over 1000 people is
> >>considered statistically representative of the entire adult population of
> >>the United States, within +/- 3 percentage points. You can imagine how
> >>small a sample would give comparable results for the ham population of
> >>700,000 or so. That makes it pretty likely that very few contesters are in
> >>the sample for any given QST reader poll.
> >
> >
> >The results of the last 3 ARRL Readex surveys have had error rates of
> 3.6, 3.6 and 3.5 points. And yes, out of 160K members, 6K contesters
> won't be noticed much (4%). Of those ARRL members on this reflector
> (about 700?), the percentage is more like 0.4%. So of roughly 800
> surveys returned, only three might be from people on this reflector.
> > -- Tom
>
>=====
>e-mail: k1ki@arrl.org ARRL New England Division
>Director http://www.arrl.org/
>Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444
>
>
>--
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Jim Rhodes K0XU
jim@rhodesend.net
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