[VHFcontesting] Activity in the ARRL VHF Contests SInce 1991

[Eugene Zimmerman]

Duffey

You are quite right about the June contest which shows increased activity in
SPITE of the rules. I would guess that if you looked at the bands used in
June you would find that June 2006 was just spectacular conditions. But if
you look at 2008 and 2009 you would find the same core of multiband stations
and a new group of six meter only and/or 6 and 2 stations using HF/VHF
relative;y high end radios. These newcomers were particularly noticable this
last January - at least two dozen new locals who had only 6 or at best 6 and
2. Probably another dozen like that 150-300 km away. That's all to the good.
But they won't migrate past June if they have no way to compete within their
own restrictions.

Let's face the fact that VHF is a new world for these guys and they are not
going to either spend the money or even initially have the technical
capability to build 10 band stations. We have a good example of a
flourishing domestic VHF contest - the CQ VHF July contest which does ONLY 6
and 2 meters and allows single band competition. Even last year with
dreadful conditions it maintained a good part of the activity it sees with
lots of Es. In any case it has 3x the logs it had 10 years ago when it
started. Because of the geography, east coast stations are at a severe
DISADVANTAGE in the CQ contest. It's much like the HF SS except that the
west coast does not do as well comparatively because there is usually less
Es out there.

There are several things we can do. For one we can start with distance
scoring in at least one of the ARRL contests - probably September is best
because it will not be impacted as much by Es. We need to reconsider a
limited single op category perhaps limiting it to 6, 2 and 432 and allowing
single band competitions within it. In any case we need to cultivate these
new HF/VHF ops instead of driving them away with a scoring system that
emphasizes microwave contacts and trivializes contacts on 6 and 2 meters. 

Tell me how well the HF contests would be doing if we required a competive
entrant to have 10 acres, 5 200 foot rotating towers with stacked arrays on
10-40, 80 and 160 meter foursquares and half a dozen 550 foot beverages
along with a mature SO2R station driving solid state legal limit amplifiers.
Or at least two 100 ft+ towers and several acres of low band receiving
antennas even in order to turn in a score that wouldn't embarrass you.
That's the equivalent of what the VHF contests require. Old timers have
heard this from me before and nothing has happened. I suspect nothing will
happen this time either.

--Gene W3ZZ

-----Original Message-----
From: James Duffey [mailto:jamesduffey at comcast.net] 
Sent: Sunday, February 28, 2010 8:34 PM
To: Eugene Zimmerman; VHF Contesting Reflector
Cc: James Duffey
Subject: [VHFcontesting] Activity in the ARRL VHF Contests SInce 1991

Gene - Thanks for the kind comments on the data. I have included some more
in this post, incorporating your % of max participation. 

Looking at The January contest is interesting in that it was the first VHF
contest, followed by the September and June contest. Of even more interest
is the fact that activity in the January VHF contest peaked in 1961. There
have been local peaks since then, the most recent in 1996 as you point out.

Here is a table with the activity for all the ARRL VHF contests, with a
percentage of the mid 90s max, 1996 for January and June, 1997 for
September. While the January and September contests show the trend you note,
that is that activity has been more or less constant in this decade and down
from the mid 90s peak, the June contest has shown significant growth over
the decade and is higher than the mid 90s peak. In fact the 2006, 2008, and
2009 contests set all time highs for entries in the June contest. 

Table - VHF Contest Activity since Rover Class was introduced in 1991

Year	Jan	%1996	June	%1996	Sept    %1997

2010	759	62	NA	NA	NA	  NA
2009	649	53	1136   123	594	  79
2008	709	58	1074   116	482	  64
2007	778	64	860	93	561	  75
2006	793	65	1047   113	531	  71
2005	712	58	840	91	629	  84
2004	834	68	766	83	558	  74
2003	798	65	818	89	520	  69
2002	802	66	672	73	535	  71
2001	790	65	680	74	553	  74
2000	820	67	749	81	583	  78
1999	966	79	701	76	606	  81
1998	1075	88	865	94	617	  82
1997	1182	97	837	91	751	 100
1996	1219   100	923    100	700	  93
1995	1171	96	837	91	686	  91
1994	1013	83	781	85	687	  91
1993	1036	85	818	89	621	  83
1992	958	77	840	91	591	  79
1991			710	77	415	  55

Why is the June contest healthy and the January and September contests
pretty much holding their own? As you note, I suspect that the presence of
those HF rigs with 6M introduced in the last decade coupled with lots of
E-Skip and hence lots of activity in June have a lot to do with that. The
FFMA supplying another award to chase is certainly another. It is all easier
to grasp if you cut this table out and paste it into a spreadsheet and graph
it. 

W9KGA is probably the guy who should be doing this analysis, he has a much
better understanding of the ebbs and flows of VHF contesting activity since
its inception than I have. 

I agree with you that VHF contesting needs to be made more attractive and to
do this, as you say, we need to find a way for the guy with a limited
station to have fun and rack up a reasonable score. How do you propose we
accomplish this? - Duffey
--
KK6MC
James Duffey
Cedar Crest NM