Don,
I believe there are multiple factors causing this.
- Hams are spending more time on the Internet instead of the air. Groups like
this have replaced ragchewing.
- I find new young hams are turned off by the personalities on the air. They
don't relate to the old gusy's, like me, who populate the bands.
- Lots of hams don't operate these days but still renew licenses.
- Intertest in the digital modes has been growing while CW has been declining.
- I find hams who do operate are not interested in going on the air to ragchew
but to go on the air for a purpose, such as DX'ing or contesting.
I expect this trend to continue. Fortunately the MF and HF bands are not
targets for the wireless communications these days or we would lose spectrum to
other services.
Mike N2MS
----- Original Message -----
From: Donald Chester <k4kyv@hotmail.com>
To: topband@contesting.com
Sent: Sat, 22 Oct 2016 06:03:05 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: Topband: Where is everyone?
Here it is Friday night, with relatively little QRN, but only a couple of
signals are audible across the entire 160m band. 80/75m has a few more signals
than that, but it's sparsely occupied as well. Usually by this late in the
season one will hear plenty of activity in the evening, especially on weekends.
I have noticed this dearth of activity for several weeks now; it's as if this
year's radio season hasn't got off the ground yet, despite the fact that we are
almost midway through autumn and the summer QRN has substantially subsided.
Is this a trend, and is this becoming the new normal? They keep telling us we
now have a record number of hams in the FCC data base, over 700,000. Those
hams certainly aren't on the air, at least not on 160, 80 or 40m. I can
remember not that many years ago when at this stage in the season on a quiet
weekend night one had to scout around to find a clear spot to call CQ. So far
this year, the bands have all had vast swathes of unused frequencies, but the
signals that are heard appear to be at normal strength, so the bands
apparently aren't dead.
Don k4kyv
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