Shortly after the initial posting of claimed scores for the June 2009 VHF
Contest, I did a brief analysis on the Rover activity in the June Contest and
posted it to the list. Now that the final results are out, I thought I would
revise the post with the latest numbers.
Here is the chart of activity in the June VHF QSO Party since the inception of
the Rover class in 1991:
Year Entries Rovers % total Notes
2009 1152 102 8.9
2008 1074 96 8.9 3 rover classes
2007 860 98 11.3
2006 1047 96 9.2
2005 840 92 11.2
2004 766 91 11.9
2003 818 92 11.2
2002 672 84 12.5
2001 680 61 9.0
2000 749 62 8.3
1999 701 75 10.7
1998 865 72 8.3
1997 837 74 8.8
1996 923 72 7.8
1995 837 52 6.2 Current scoring implemented
1994 781 68 8.7
1993 818 63 7.7 Rules change due to grid circling
1992 840 64 7.6
1991 710 50 7.0 Rover class begun
I hope that the table formatting held up. It is best viewed with a monospaced
typeface like Courier.
Rich, K1TEO has also posted a nice summary on the Rover activity in the June
2009 contest on the Web Report:
< http://www.arrl.org/members-only/contests/results/2009/jun-vhf/sidebar1.html >
The 2009 June VHF contest and roving activity is at a high not seen for many
years and this is good. It shows that the VHF contesting community is growing,
or at least holding its own. Some of the increased activity may be due to the
popularity of the Fred Fish Memorial Award as well. The presence of modest, but
not pervasive Sporadic E also helped activity.
This was the second June Contest with the new roving categories and the results
are interesting:
Year Classic Limited Unlimited Total
2009 60 37 5 102
2008 61 26 8 95
The growth in rover activity from 2008 to 2009 came entirely in the Limited
Rover category, which saw a growth of 40%! While it is nice to see this kind of
growth in rover activity, it is probably not good in the long run for those who
operate microwave bands in the contest as the Classic Rover category stayed
stagnant. The sample is small and the new categories have only been in use two
years, so it is probably not prudent to draw too many conclusions from these
numbers. Still, the unlimited category does not seem to have caught on. There
was no major group of pack rovers in the June contest either.
I have started to look at the effect on 222 MHz activity due to the Limited
Rover rules change this year. More on that later. - Duffey
--
KK6MC
James Duffey
Cedar Crest NM
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