Topband: Boring Report - December

[Brian Machesney]

I found George's thoughts particularly interesting and reminiscent of the
longstanding discussion around 10m in times of poor propagation. In that
light, I thought it might be interesting to review contest entry stats from
the past few years:

ARRL 160       CQ WW 160 CW

2006: 1052     2007: 1801
2007: 1197     2008: 1860
2008: 1281     2009: 2220
2009: 1336     2010: 2390
2010: 1283

Note that I paired ARRL 160 and CQ WW 160 by "season" rather than by
calendar year, since that better reflects the situation on top band.

I believe this supports George's suggestion that hams want to get on the
band when there are other stations to work. Since both contests accept
"within country" as well as "between country" contacts, it doesn't seem to
matter to many of the entrants whether the QSO is to another section,
another zone or another country. Perhaps it's just not in our DNA to brave
the challenging nature of the band on a daily basis year-in and year-out.

-- 
73 -- Brian -- K1LI