Topband: CQWW CW Activity on 160

[Bill Tippett]

Hello Again!

        OOPS...I made a mistake!  1995 should be 1299...not 2040.  K1ZM's
record was set in 1995 with 470 QSO's so 2040 did not look out of line for
5 MM's.

        Thought you might be intersted to see some trends on 160 activity
which I discovered while doing some research for K1ZM and the ARRL 160
Bandplan Committee.  Many thanks to Ivo 5B4ADA who did an Excel Spreadsheet
and to Jim K4MA who loaned me his CQ WW Contest Results CD-ROM.  

        Below is the sum of 160 QSO's reported in CQ Magazine from 1975-1999 
and the claimed scores for 2000 from the 3830 reflector.  I simply added the
160 QSO's of the 5 top-scoring USA multi-multi's (...not necessarily the top 
5 160 scores).  You can see a definite trend of increasing QSO's as well as 
variations caused by solar cycle maxima and minima.  As we know, maxima are
bad and minima are good for 160 because of the strong influence absorption
has on 160 DX propagation.

Year    QSO's (Sum of Top 5 USA Multi-multi QSO's on 160 in CQWW CW Contests)
1975    214
1976    300     Cycle minimum June 1976
1977    295
1978    229
1979    235     Cycle 21 maximum December 1979
1980    215     
1981    298
1982    230
1983    407
1984    502
1985    647
1986    546     Cycle minimum September 1986
1987    495
1988    391
1989    392     Cycle 22 maximum June 1989
1990    523
1991    381
1992    433
1993    890
1994    781
1995    1299
1996    1474    Cycle minimum May 1996
1997    704
1998    898
1999    996
2000    1092    Cycle 23 maximum April 2000

        Note the definite growth trends at both maxima and minima over the
past two solar cycles: 

At cycle maxima, QSO sums...235-392-1092...compound growth +7.6 %/yr
At cycle minima, QSO sums...300-546-1474...compound growth +8.3 %/yr
Average growth over 25 years 1975-2000.....compound growth +7.0 %/yr

        `The next solar minimum will likely occur sometime between late 2005 
and late 2006 with cycle 24 peaking in 2009 or 2010.  If Cycle 23 is similar 
to Cycle 22, we may see peak 160 conditions just prior to the actual minimum
as was the case in November 1995.

                                                        73,  Bill  W4ZV


--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/FAQ/topband
Submissions:              topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-topband@contesting.com