Dee Flint wrote:

I and the OM also worked some of the VHF contest and noticed a very strange
thing. Only 10% of the contacts that we made were Technician operators. On
the other hand, 80% of them were Extra class operators. So where are all
the Techs who are "trapped" in VHF and above because they "can't" pass the
code (as some would have us believe)?

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

Dee, I'm going to guess (i.e., don't ask me for facts, figures,
substantive studies, reports from the FCC/ARRL, etc) that of the Techs
that have stayed in amateur radio, most have done so for the emergency
communications aspect of the service. As such, they would typically
stay on FM.

The ones who could learn Morse Code and have had to time to do so have
moved up. Those who didn't have the time or couldn't learn it have
moved on.

It's nice to see Miss Manners finally noticing something amiss in the
ARS.