According to Steve Kerns (N3FTI) post to VHF@W6YZ...
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Have been following this thread for awhile...
Gene Zimmerman ,W3ZZ (QST "World Above 50MHz" Editor) spoke last week at the Mt.
Airy VHF Radio Club (the Packrats). The topic was the declining participation
in VHF contests. According to Gene, the ARRL has been watching the numbers of
VHF, UHF, and EME contest entries decline for the last few years. It is quite
possible that the ARRL will think no one is interested and they should spend
their time on better things! We need to generate more VHF contest entries (that
is, if
we think the contest are worth having!). The only indicator Newington has is
the number of logs they get per contest. The ARRL has no idea how many people
operate in each contest, they only data they gather is the number of logs they
receive.
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I've got to believe that something got lost in the translation in what Gene told
the Mt. Airy VHF Group and the information shown above. Certainly he (of
anyone) understands that this data is readily available for analysis.
It took me 5-minutes and an excel spreadsheet to know how many people
participated in a contest (and who they are)...based on what callsigns appeared
in a few big logs vs. who actually submitted a log to the ARRL. I'm nobody
special, but I figured it out. The ARRL is full of folks a lot smarter than me.
Just a week or so of focused attention to the task will provide all of the data
needed to not only reach a valid conclusion (which has yet to be reached), but
start the ball rolling about finding a solution.
I've got to believe that Gene was misunderstood. Things can't be as bleak as
this makes them appear.
Ev, W2EV
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