[W8MWA] Is the EXTRA CLASS ham radio license worth the effort?

[Spence Graham]

Here are the numbers... and they don't lie.  This is empirical evidence and
researched at the club level from the contest club that I belong to...
Northeast
Maryland Amateur Radio Contest Society (NEMARCS).

These are serious and not-so-serious contesters who compete together in all
major contests for SSB, CW and RTTY just for the fun of contesting as a
group of friends.  Some club members have towers, beam antennas, and
amplifiers... while some of us use dipoles and 100 watts.  (I contest with
them most of the time, however I can only participate for actual club score
with the club during non-ARRL contests since I am about 15 miles outside of
the club boundary radius permitted for ARRL contests... but I do count for
score with them in non-ARRL contests.  All scores are personal scores, as
well as tallied for a total club score at the end of each contest.  We use
an online chatroom and updated LIVE scoring webpage to see what everyone is
doing during the contest.)

The data points were taken from two different major SSB DX contests
recently.  (Our club BEAST made 735 contacts last weekend with ZERO
sunspots and worked 113 different DXCC entities worldwide.)  Here are the
research details that we ran from two contester's logs of those
recent contests.

(At the end I added some West Virginia and national FCC License data that
was posted on the ARRL website on March 11, 2020.)

*Sooooo... is it worth the effort to get your Extra Class ham radio
license?  THE RESOUNDING ANSWER IS YES!  If you upgrade your license to the
EXTRA CLASS License privileges you will find 30-40 percent MORE targets to
work, not only in a contest but also in a general hunt for DX and domestic
contacts on our band plan allocations.*

***

Sent: Thu, Mar 12, 2020 3:07 pm
Subject: [NEMARC] Extra Privilege Analysis - ARRL DX SSB

Hi All,

After CQ WW SSB last fall, Dean and I did an analysis and found we both
made 30% of our Qs in the Extra portion of the band.  Dean and I just
repeated the analysis during ARRL DX SSB last weekend.  The results:

KA3YJM:
Total Qs: 327
Extra portion: 131
Percentage:  40.06%

N3FJP:
Total Qs:  560
Extra portion:  225
Percentage:  40.18%


I am amazed how high and how close our percentages are.  Guys, get your
Extras this summer, before CQ WW in October!  The difference is huge!!!!


73, Scott
N3FJP

***
As of March 11, 2020 on ARRL.ORG website

*West Virginia Ham Radio Licenses*

Novice  52
Technician  3,379
General  1,384
Advanced  238
Extra  1,209

*TOTAL United States Ham Radio Licenses*

Novice  7,767
Technician  389,050
General  179,830
Advanced  38,221
Extra  150,819

*** Obviously, the worldwide numbers would be significantly higher based up
their own country's licensing structure... but they DO operate on our Extra
Class license frequency allocations.

*GET RADIOACTIVE!*

-- 
73,

Spence

*Spencer W. Graham, II*
*WT8WV*
*73 Crosby Road*
*Morgantown, WV 26508*

*2017-2019 VP of Monongalia Wireless Association http://www.w8mwa.org/
<http://www.w8mwa.org/> *
*ARRL Volunteer Examiner *
*W5YI Volunteer Examiner*
*Laurel ARC Volunteer Examiner*
*ARRL WV Section Affiliate Club Coordinator *

*Check Out My Ham Radio Blog Site...  http://kb8fir.wordpress.com
<http://kb8fir.wordpress.com>*

*(ex-KB8FIR and ex-KA8LJO)*
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