It also makes it possible to make a graph of the distribution of age. I had 62 contacts this weekend, of which 55 were unique. They were mainly in Asiatic Russia and Japan. The average age of the operators was 51.6 years - 7 years younger than me - and the graph shows the distribution. The bar for e.g. 54 is the percentage, 20 in this case, of operators in the bracket 50-54 years and so on.
The graph actually makes me quite optimistic concerning the future of ham radio. There are many young contest operators out there, at least in Asia. This resonates well with what others are saying also. Never before has there been so large activity on the bands as during contests these days.
Hi Sverre,
ReplyDeleteWith my 5W setup I did 26 contacts, and same I had an an average age of 50-55. The youngest I had was UP2L, 17 y.o. and two JA stations, 18 and 19.
Funny, I noticed in my case, I was asked by almost all the station to repeat my NR, 26. Probably they thought first they copy it wrong hi.
Anyway, its a fun contest. Because of the restriction to work only AS, is not so QRP friendly, so not so much QSOs, but with patience surprises can come.
73 Adrian, YO4HHP
Hi Adrian, Nice to hear from you. Doing this contest with QRP must be hard, I'm sure. My youngest contact was with a 33 year old, so your 26 years is well below that. Good luck with future contests and QRP - and I have added your blog to my bloglist in the right-hand column.
ReplyDeleteOf course your graph assumes that the 2nd part of the exchange (age) is as honest as the signal report!
ReplyDeleteGood comment, John. Well, I know that the 599 is not a signal report, but rather a 'sync' signal signifying that important information follows. But cheating on the age? You mean that after the age of 40 or so, we all want to make it smaller?
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