[CQ-Contest] No more JAs

[David Pruett]

KI9A at aol.com wrote:
> Or, maybe it propagation being So poor?
>  
> 73-Chuck KI9A
>
>   
This is not a propagation problem.  For those relative newcomes amoung 
us, many of us "old timers" who remember DX contesting in the 70s and 
80s can tell stories of (seemingly) never-ending runs of JAs from even 
modest stations well away from the west coast.  In my case, I can 
clearly remember getting my first 100+ hours on 28 MHz SSB running JAs 
from Michigan with a 3L tribander at 40' mounted in a tree.

Nothing like this exists now.  It's also the reason for the demise in DX 
contest activity in zone 3 (no insult intended).

One hypothesis put forth is that the JAs got bored with being "cannon 
fodder" for the West Coast big guns.  Another theory is that as crowding 
the big JA cities got worse, fewer JAs could put up antennas for HF.  
Perhaps the lure of cell phones and computers pulled the JA 
techno-hobbyist away from ham radio.  Take your pick.

I doubt there is any easy fix for this, unless we can make HF ham radio 
attractive to these people again.

For many years, we all waited for a huge explosion of BY hams as China 
became a more open society.  That hasn't worked to any great extent 
either...


73,

Dave/K8CC