Ham Radio in 3 Land & Western 2 Land?? What happened??

[WBear2GCR]

Frankly, compared with years, no decades past, there seems to be fewer and few hams
on AM in particular, and even SSB from 3 Land and Central and Western 2 Land!

A whole TON of hams in 1 Land, and Eastern 2 Land (where I am). But not much that I hear at all from those other
areas... I'm about equidistant to say Central Maine, where HLR is, and others, to all of Eastern
PA and Central NY.

I'm not hearing many hams on from these areas!!

It's not just propagation.

Anyone have any thoughts on this??

[KB2WIG]

You don't send me flowers anymore.....


I've been on 6m lately, along with building out and rewiring shack adding radials for the 160m eL in the jungle ( ran one radial in a crack in the driveway).

KLC

[Pete, WA2CWA]

You didn't mention frequencies or bands.
Almost daily I hear 3 land stations down around 3705. The AWA net always brings in 3 land and WNY stations. I worked 14 3 land stations on SSB and CW this past weekend on 6 and 2 meters. There was a QSO on 40 meters around 11AM today between a Philly station and a station from WPA on 40 meters.

It's also great weather around the area. Maybe people want to get out and play in their yard and not sit in front of their radios and make mindless conversations like we so often hear on the bands. 

[WBear2GCR]

A trend for years... certainly 75m AM... even SSB, 3 land seems more rare.
Dunno 40m, it seems not terribly good for some time. Often I don't even hear ECARS...

20m? Well that's a different animal, often one can hear only one side of the QSO.

Nothing to do with summer or winter...

[Pete, WA2CWA]

You could go to the members list, search and review all the "3" call listings to get a feel for at least "AM" interests in that call area. Probably some subset of that list might be active stations.

Or maybe, when they feel the urge to get on the air, they hear nothing but mindless jibber-jabber, feel frustrated and disillusioned, shut down and just pray in silence that the Eagles will win something in the near future. 

[Tom WA3KLR]

W3GMS et moi-meme bought up all the shares.

I've been wondering - where are the Canadian AM'ers who used to hang around 3725, eh?

[WBear2GCR]

QIX might come in to give some stats, but I'd guess that of the almost 500 AM ops that
have checked into the Lonely Guys net, Saturday mornings, less than 5% (if that) are
from 3 land, and similarly from Western NY...

As far as being "disillusioned"?

Anyone can fire up on any frequency and have their own QSO and talk about whatever
they like. We're not restricted to any existing group or "clique"... so?

[WBear2GCR]

Spoke to Steve on the air today.
Turns out to be ~6% all time check-ins to the Lonely Guys net were
with a "3" call and somewhere in 3 land...

Yeah, and where are the Cannuks?

                _-_-

[Steve - K4HX]

Sadly, some 3-land stalwarts have passed in recent years.

[WBear2GCR]

Where are the reserves??

[Steve - K4HX]

What I've found over the years is that certain stations generate activity. When they get on, others get on. If they don't get on, the others don't get on. I have no explanation for this.