[CQ-Contest] Women in contesting

[Kenneth E. Harker]

     An article I wrote last August has finally been published on the 
ARRLWeb:

http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2005/03/15/1/?nc=1

     Although there is significant regional variation, one out of every 
seven hams in the U.S. is female.

     Based on my own personal observations during domestic phone contests
and other contests with a very large number of domestic contacts like the 
Sweepstakes, NAQP, the ARRL 10 Meter Contest, and the IARU, only about 
one in every fifty to sixty contesters in the U.S. is female.

     If we could just improve the male/female ratio in contesting to match 
that of ham radio at large, how many more QSOs could that be?  Today, in a 
2,000 QSO Sweepstakes log, you are probably making fewer than 40 QSOs with 
female hams.  If you worked the same number of male hams, but the number 
of female operators worked went from 2% to 15% of the total, you would 
be making over 2,300 total QSOs.  

     Wouldn't 300 more QSOs be fun?

-- 
Kenneth E. Harker WM5R
kenharker at kenharker.com
http://www.kenharker.com/