[CQ-Contest] Re: ARRL Contest Participation Statistics

[Bud Hippisley, K2KIR]

At 08:43 AM 2004-02-19, Bill Tippett wrote:
>http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/02/18/2/?nc=1
>
>        Interesting statistics at the bottom of the article.  With the
>exception of the IARU, categories showing significant  growth
>are either digital modes or VHF.

I found two quotes from the article to be of interest:

"Sweepstakes logs for both modes were off in 2003 by 6.4 percent."
"Henderson blamed sagging propagation for at least some of the drop-off in log submissions for HF events."

I can attest to the fact that the loss of at least one SS log submittal was NOT the result of sagging propagation but instead the knowledge that line scores for all the participants in my ARRL section would not appear in QST.  I was active in the contest, but saw no reason to submit a log.  (If a tree falls in the forest....)  

Of course, some cynics would say this is playing into the hands of those who want the League to de-emphasize contests:  Reduced QST coverage leads to reduced interest, which leads to further de-emphasis of contest coverage, which leads to termination or curtailment of contests, etc.

Bud, K2KIR