QST Contest Survey

[Sylvan Katz]

Eric:

Before a response to the editorial in QST can be made regarding
Contest articles in QST it would be interesting to know some
fundamental percentages. For example what percentage of the column
inches in the Jan 91 to Dec 92 QST were devoted to advertising,
technical articles, operating activities, contesting, etc. Also, it
would also be nice to know what percentage of the subscribers
participate in contests. I suspect that the editor knows these
statistics already.

Readership surveys that solicit mail-in responses from the readers are
subject to a great deal of bias because they do not necessarily sample
a prorper cross-section of the readership. For example, a large number
of responses may come from minority groups and few, if any, from the
'silent majority'.  Perhaps one approach might be to request that QST
use an approved sampling technique - such as the telephone survey
techniques used by Gallop Pole - before making any decisions.  If
these results are consistant with the readership survey then an
alternative for publishing contest results may have to be found.
However, it is possible that contest artcles are popular and the
survey is in error.

Any comments?

Sylvan
VE5ZX