K=D8HB wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
K=D8HB wrote:
The growth in numbers of Amateurs over the past decade
has been overwhelmingly via the Technician license.
.... since about 1987 or so, most new hams
have started out as Technicians.
Jim, we can nit-pick the semantics if you really think that's
productive, but
the two statements above both seem to convey the same notion, which
we might
more clearly state "Most new hams since 1991 have entered via the
Technician
class which is now the largest single license class in the US,
comprising almost
half (47.7%) of the population of licensees in this country, nearly
equal to the
combined total population of the three higher classes.".
I'm not trying to nitpick semantics, Hans, just looking for solid info.
I do agree that most new hams since 1991 have entered via the Tech
license - in fact, by the mid-80s if not earlier, most new hams I
encountered bypassed the Novice and went straight to Tech. The main
reason they gave me was 2 meter and 440 repeaters - Techs could use
'em, Novices couldn't. The splitting of the Element 3 written test in
1987 and the dropping of the code test for Tech in 1991 just helped the
trend along.
AH0A's posted numbers only go back to June 1997, which is of course 8
years rather than a decade, but let's take a look anyway:
June 1997 (per AH0A.org):
Novice - 66,551
Tech - 174,924
TechPlus - 139,608
Tech/TechPlus combined - 314,532 (46.4%)
General - 116,629
Advanced - 107,024
Extra - 73,737
General/Advanced/Extra combined - 297,390 (43.8%)
Total all classes: 678,473
April 2005 (per AH0A.org):
Novice - 28,615
Tech/TechPlus combined - 318,318 (47.7%)
General - 136,808
Advanced - 76,418
Extra - 106,587
General/Advanced/Extra combined - 319,813 (48.0%)
Total all classes: 666,746
So in the past 7 years 8 months we've seen growth of 3,786 in the
Tech/TechPlus classes, pushing those classes' percentage of US hamdom
up 1.3%. But in the same time period we've also seen growth of 22,423
in the General/Advanced/Extra classes, pushing those classes'
percentage of US hamdom up 4.2%.
So when I read a claim that "The growth in numbers of Amateurs over the
past decade
has been overwhelmingly via the Technician license.", I would like to
see more data.
Now it occurs to me that you may have meant that "via the Technician
license" means most hams start that way, and I agree. Point is, it
seems to me that a lot of new hams don't *stay* Technicians forever.
--
I don't think there's ever been a time when ARRL had a majority of US
hams as members. The most I ever saw claimed was about one-third, and
that was many decades ago.
I think the big unknown in all this is the percentage of *active* hams
who are members - or even the number of active hams, period.
The number of ham radio licenses has always included a certain
percentage of SK and totally inactive hams, but with the increase of
the license term to 10 years back in 1984 and the general aging of the
US population, it's logical to think that the percentage of SK and
totally inactive hams has increased dramatically in recent years. From
1994 to 1999, no US ham licenses expired at all.
In the bad old days, those who lost interest quickly disappeared from
the license totals. Novices had one or two years to upgrade or leave
the air, and the other licenses were only good for 5 years. IIRC, it
used to be that if you didn't get your Form 610 to FCC before the
license expired, it was gone - no grace period. (Of course back then
FCC would renew a lot sooner than 90 days before the license expired,
upgrades caused automatic renewal and you could combine a renewal and a
modification.)=20
73 de Jim, N2EY
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