[CQ-Contest] My email to my close CAC representatives

[RT Clay]

Because of Sweepstake's one qso per station rule, a very good measure of activity is the largest qso count of any station in the contest (single or multi op). If you plot that versus year (sorry, can't attach that in cq-contest), you will see that the max qsos in SS CW reached 1200-1300 in the days before computer logging. Between 1989 and the mid 1990's the total number jumped up to more than 1500- that was the effect of computer logging and so2r. It stayed relatively constant until ~2015 (with a peak of almost 1600 in 2009). Since 2015 it has been declining, except for the pandemic years 2020-2022. The reported highest qso total in 2025 was 1194, which would not have been a winning log in the pre-computer days 1970's-1980's.

Phone SS totals have also been declining continuously since about the year 2000.

Tor N4OGW
    On Wednesday, February 11, 2026 at 06:27:03 AM CST, K9MA <k9ma at sdellington.us> wrote:  
 
 On 2/10/2026 6:23 PM, Art Boyars wrote:
> in a way, we've worked ourselves out of a job.
Anyone have recordings of contests before computer logging? I know that 
in 1967 the winner of CW SS averaged about 30/hr, maybe less.

73,
Scott K9MA

-- 
Scott  K9MA

k9ma at sdellington.us
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