I was looking at some of that same data. Some more interesting comparisons:
- both at the same part of the Sunspot Cycle although one in the Pacific and one in Africa
- T32C had about 10 more active days than TN8K.
- If you remove the extra active days, the QSO counts are very comparable in totals - gross totals were 213k for T32C and 164k for TN8K.
- T32C had 47k Uniques and TN8K had 26k Uniques. Again if you normalize days, T32C has 33k uniques.
- The percentage of modes for T32C was 42% Voice, 48% CW, and 10% Digital (RTTY and PSK)
- The percentage of modes for TN8K was 19% Voice, 31% CW, 48% Digital.
Conclusions?
Mine are that there are less DXers in the world than 10 years ago but still quite a few ~30,000? And clearly Voice is giving up Qs hugely, and even CW is dropping, in favor of Digital.
What's the chicken vs the egg? People love digital? Or DXpeditions are going to it because its easier? Not sure, but the math says that the ratios are changing however not so much as to just go digital. Ortherwise, TN8K wouldn;t have worked 80,000 Qs non Digital.
Ed N1UR