[CQ-Contest] The King (Packet cluster network) is dead! Long livethe King (Skimmer reverse beacon network)

[Hal Offutt]

In his very interesting post CT1BOH wrote


When one looks at the growth of QSOs during 48 hour contests (notably
maximum QSOs in the CQWW SOAB CW category in the past decades:
50's 1277 QSOs
60's 2623 QSOs
70's 4505 QSOs
80's 5970 QSO
90's 7555 QSOs
00's 7828 QSOs
one has to wonder where have all those extra QSOs have come from.

W1NN writes:

K8MR and K1TN have provided some good additional insights into the reasons
why we are working so many more stations than in bygone days.

However, I wonder if the most important reason is simply demographic.

My 1958 Callbook lists approximately 168,000 US amateurs and 80,000 amateurs
from the rest of the world for a total of around 250,000.  According to
estimates I have seen, today the worldwide amateur population is something
like 2.5 to 3 million.  Even if we reduce this number by about 1 million to
account for the huge of JA's  who hold lifetime operator licenses
but who are inactive, it looks like the increase in contest participation
cited by Jose more or less tracks the increase in the worldwide ham
population.

More hams = more contest Q's.

73,

Hal W1NN