Aging Trends in Ham Radio Contesting: A Demographic Review

The ham radio population is aging, primarily consisting of Baby Boomers and older generations. The author, a spatial demographer, has studied the population dynamics of ham radio enthusiasts, particularly those involved in amateur radio contests. They have published several works on this topic and have written about it in their Social Circuits column, with more writings expected in the future. This document presents a modest analysis of aging and radiosport participation among amateur radio operators, using survey data from the National Contest Journal (NCJ) and two regional ARRL surveys. The results suggest that age is related to contest participation, with older hams tending to engage in more contests per year. However, the author notes the limitations of the data, which are based on voluntary response samples rather than random samples. The paper also examines the sources of contest information used by hams, finding that older contesters favor traditional sources like the NCJ, while younger hams prefer online sources