On Mon, Sep 02, 2002 at 08:04:46PM +0000, Bill Olson wrote:
>
> 1. Is the reason there is a decline in contest activity because the
> "playing field" is not level???? I don't think so. Look back in old QST's
> at contest results. There were TWO entr
> ant categories: Single op, Multiop. And multipliers were arrl sections..
> not grids. That is about as unequal a playing field as we have ever had,
> yet there was a LOT of activity. Maybe participation is declining because
> the ham population is declining or at least the ham population interested
> in this stuff. Plus there are a LOT more things to do these days!!
I really wish someone would give us some hard numbers of this
"decline in contest activity". I have seen this thrown up
several times on this list in the last year but I do not
recall anyone providing any proof of this "fact".
Earlier this year I did look at the numbers of logs submitted
for the threee major ARRL VHF contests and found that they
were all within +/- 40-50 entries over those years.
This does not seem like decline to me - it would seem that
good or bad conditions would have at least this
much affect on entries.
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