Dee D. Flint wrote:
Using the table at http://www.speroni.com/FCC/Licenses.html

Combined number of General, Advanced, and Extra licensees in July 1999 ==
289,669
Combined number of General, Advanced, and Extra licensees in April 2004 ==
326,024
Increase in number of General, Advanced, and Extra licensees over the time
period == 36,355
Number of Tech+ licensees in July 1999 == 133,979

Now the July 1999 Tech+ would have been eligible to upgrade to General and
higher with only written tests. Even if they expired after July, they still
had plenty of time to renew within their grace period and still upgrade to
General and higher with only written tests at the time of the restructuring
in April 2000.

From the above numbers, at most only 27% of the people eligible to upgrade
with only a written test did so. The number would actually be less since
some were the pre-1987 Techs who only had to submit a paper upgrade without
testing, some would have been Techs who upgraded by taking code and theory,
and some would have been Techs/Tech+ licensed since July 1999 who went on to
upgrade too.

So we have OVER 97,000 people eligible to upgrade with just a written who
did not do so. Any one care to venture an explanation as to why?

Because many of these people are happy right where they are. I've long
said that there is a natural divide between the HF and VHF/UHF, much of
it based on propagation characteristics. There are simply many people
that are quite content with their access to a local repeater, and thank
you very much! 8^)

I think this is one of the mistaken impressions that a lot of people
have. Some people do not want to put up a big antenna, some people
aren't all that entranced about talking all over the world.

The fact that I would rather operate HF than VHF and up does not mean
that everyone or even a majority does.

I think it is a mistake to think that simply allowing Technicians HF
access is going to provide some kind of shot in the arm to Ham radio. I
suspect that many of them will continue on the local repeaters, or
whatever they were doing before they got the extra privileges



Continuing in this vein:
In April 2000 the number of Advanced licensees == 101,725
In April 2004 the number of Advanced licensees == 80,597
Change == 21,128

Thus only 21% either upgraded, died (and their family officially notified
the FCC), or let their license expire. Why did so many choose not to
upgrade? All they needed to do was take a written no harder than what they
had already taken.