How Old is the Average SOTA Operator?

As part of an ongoing project I am running with the Ordnance Survey (The UK Mapping Agency), I am looking at the demographic of hill walkers by age. What better group to choose to sample than SOTA. I appreciate the initial result may be skued by the age demography of Radio Amateurs. However, when mixed with feedback from other groups we should have some interesting results to analyse.

What I am asking you to do is vote in your age bracket. I have not requested to know who has voted, that is irrelavant. Obviously the more votes I get the better the result and smaller the margin of error.

Thank you for your indulgence.

73 Glyn

  • Under 21
  • 21 - 30
  • 31 - 40
  • 41 - 50
  • 51 - 60
  • 61 - 70
  • 71 - 80
  • Over 80

0 voters

1 Like

Is it OK if amateurs outside the UK respond?

73, Hans PB2T

Hi Glyn

Presumably it’s activators you’re interested in rather than the chasers sat in their nice warm shacks :wink:

1 Like

I’d change the title of the thread into "How young is the Average SOTA Activator?

Cheers,

Guru

4 Likes

I just took part without thinking, so it’s not UK-only any more anyway…

73, Sylvia

1 Like

Glyn said he was researching the age of hill walkers. There are not many hills in people’s shacks, but plenty of temporary shacks on the hills. :wink:


I would like everyone to vote Hans no matter what country they are from.

2 Likes

Yes it is activators - hill walkers. We are trying to create a picture of the age range of hill walkers across the UK and the world. The input from SOTA forms just one part of the data gathering process. Hopefully I will be in a position to publish the results later in the year.

73 Glyn

1 Like

Very impressed with the response so far, will let the survey run until this evening and hopefully get 100 votes.

I wonder if SOTA activators are typical of the wider hill-walking community?

Hopefully I will be able to answer that question fairly soon - however, at first glance the answer is no - we are unique. I need to see and compare with other surveys being run at the moment.

Probably not. The mountaineering club that I am in consists mostly of people in their 20’s and 30’s with approximately equal numbers of males and females. They tend to drop out as they start families and some (like me) return when their offspring become independant, but returnees are in the minority.

I also wonder what an “average SOTA operator” is. Does he/she do one, ten, a hundred activations a year? Is there any correlation between age, sex and the number of activations a year?

over 80

2 Likes

over 80- 2 votes KBRJC and KB1RJD

1 Like

hehe amazing results :slight_smile: