In article , "Dee D. Flint"
writes:

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?

As KB3EIA sez, many are quite satisfied just the way things are.

But there are more reasons:

- A significant number of those in the database are inactive hams, ranging from
SKs to "no interest anymore" to folks who simply don't have the
time/space/money/energy for ham radio right now.

- A significant number of hams are simply unaware of the changes. As odd as
this may seem, I still encounter hams who have only the vaguest idea of how
much things changed in 2000. While that may seem incredible to us denizens of
internet policy groups and discussion boards, in fact it is quite common.

- Many hams are only vaguely aware of how the VE and renewal systems work now.
IIRC, ten years ago we were still using Form 610.

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.

Same reasons as above. Plus one mo Some are under the mistaken notion that
having an Advanced somehow "proves" they passed 13 wpm code and an allegedly
tougher written test. That's simply not the case because of medical waivers
*and* the unique circumstances after April 15, 2000 (if you had a valid CSCE or
licenses for the Advanced writtens, plus either a license or CSCE for 5 wpm,
you could get an Advanced after April 15 2000 without the 13 wpm code or a
waiver.)

In any event, the numbers show that there are not huge numbers of hams beating
against the imagined "barrier" of code or written tests.

73 de Jim, N2EY