[VHFcontesting] Re: Limited Multi Class

[George Fremin III - K5TR]

On Mon, Sep 02, 2002 at 08:04:46PM +0000, Bill Olson wrote:
> 
> 1. Is the reason there is a decline in contest activity because the 
> "playing field" is not level???? I don't think so. Look back in old QST's 
> at contest results. There were TWO entr
> ant categories: Single op, Multiop. And multipliers were arrl sections.. 
> not grids. That is about as unequal a playing field as we have ever had, 
> yet there was a LOT of activity. Maybe participation is declining because 
> the ham population is declining or at least the ham population interested 
> in this stuff. Plus there are a LOT more things to do these days!!


I really wish someone would give us some hard numbers of this
"decline in contest activity".  I have seen this thrown up
several times on this list in the last year but I do not 
recall anyone providing any proof of this "fact".


Earlier this year I did look at the numbers of logs submitted 
for the threee major ARRL VHF contests and found that they 
were all within +/- 40-50 entries over those years. 

This does not seem like decline to me - it would seem that 
good or bad conditions would have at least this 
much affect on entries.