Looks like a lot of Advanced hams are moving up to Extra. Hate to see the
Novices going away. We need the Novice license re-instituted, with 50 KHz
sub-bands on the 5 major HF bands (plus 50 kHZ of phone rights on ten
meters), coordinated with world-wide beginners' license frequency
allocations. The new Novice ticket should be simpler than the old one - more
like back in the 50's and 60's. It should be good for 5 years,
non-renewable. Existing Novices should get the 5-year time-to-upgrade when
the new Novice license is instituted, saving the FCC from having to keep
track of "old" and "new" Novices in their policies and procedures. Of
course, when BPL gets rolling, it will probably all be just academic.

ak

"N2EY" wrote in message
m...
These are the number of unexpired FCC ARS
licenses held by individuals on the dates listed:

As of May 14, 2000:

Novice - 49,329
Technician - 205,394
Technician Plus - 128,860
General - 112,677
Advanced - 99,782
Extra - 78,750

Total Tech/TechPlus - 334,254

Total all classes - 674,792

As of November 1, 2004:

Novice - 30,061 (decrease of 19,268)
Technician - 264,149 (increase of 58,757)
Technician Plus - 55,582 (decrease of 73,278)
General - 138,482 (increase of 25,805)
Advanced - 78,344 (decrease of 21,438)
Extra - 105,867 (increase of 27,117)

Total Tech/TechPlus - 319,731 (decrease of 14,523)

Total all classes - 672,485 (decrease of 2307)

73 de Jim, N2EY