Further to my article here – “My Thoughts on The Recent Changes to WIA Contests” published at the start of this year, I outlined my concerns around the changes made, especially for the date changes around the Summer FD being held over the Christmas/New Years holiday period. I’ve now had the chance to summarize the data and compare 2026 (held on Jan 3/4th) vs 2025 (held on 18th/19th Jan) to see what the participation rate changes have been. All data has been taken from and available in full on the VK Log Checker website.
| Statistic | 2025 | 2026 | Difference |
| Total Log Submissions | 86 | 54 | -37% |
| Total QSO’s | 5669 | 4157 | -27% |
| Logs Per Location | |||
| VK1 | 5 | 7 | +40% |
| VK2 | 15 | 10 | -33% |
| VK3 | 23 | 18 | -22% |
| VK4 | 8 | 5 | -37.5% |
| VK5 | 8 | 1 | -87.5% |
| VK6 | 5 | 1 | -80% |
| VK7 | 13 | 7 | -46% |
| VK8 | 9 | 5 | -44% |
Unsurprisingly the already low participation rate dropped off dramatically with the exception of VK1 who had 2 more logs than last year. It good to remember that this is the prime VHF/UHF Field Day event (Summer). Yet on average the drop was -37.4% compared to 2025. Perhaps just over 1/3 of people may of been on holidays, spending time with family or simply just couldn’t be bothered in protest because of the removal of the Rover category. The 2026 Soapbox makes for interesting reading, you should check it out.
I now refer to the last “Where to from here?” portion of my original article.
