From: on Mon,May 9 2005 1:32 pm

Dee Flint wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...



I went for the actual numbers.

That is to your credit. Applause.


I tossed an e-mail msg at Dave Sumner requesting a breakdown of ARRL
memberships vs. their license classes which he came right back with.
The last time these numbers were pulled together in detail at HQ was
in
August 1996 as reported in the February 1997 issue of QST. He added
"The proportions will not have changed dramatically since then."

Extras 38,852
Advanced 39,430
General 25,245
Tech Plus 22,634
Tech 24,021
Novice 2,627

Total members = 152,809

None of us can work without REAL numbers to compare
and we are all stuck with ARRL's own numbers.

One problem is that August 1996 is about 8 1/2
years ago.

Okay, the "proportions will not have changed
'dramatically' since then" but 8 1/2 years is a
rather long time. In the dated March 2005 page
of ARRL's Sworn Statement, ARRL indicates a total
number of members as of 31 Dec 04 of 151,727 or
roughly a thousand LESS than the number in 1996.

Not "dramatic." :-)

Total Techs = 46,655 or ~30% of the ARRL membership are Techs vs. ~50%
of all licensees. There's a shortfall of Techs within the membership
but certainly not any sort of "yawning gap" in the representation of
Techs at the ARRL (or vice versa) as Hans has implied.

Not "dramatic?" :-)

While it was good that you contacted ARRL folks
direct, there's still the problem of trying to
connect 1996 numbers with 2005 numbers. Things
don't match for either "dramatic" or even mellow-
dramatic comparison. :-)

As an example, I quoted www.hamdata.com numbers
as of 7 May 2005 in here. On that day there were
a total of 723,570 amateur radio licensees (less
club calls). The total number of Technician class
licensees were, on that day, 350,455. That's
48.43 percent of the total. Compared to the 30.53
percent of Techs as ARRL members of only 30.53%
in August 1996, I'd say that comparison IS
"dramatic."

But, the "high rank" ham licensees are going to
bitch and moan and rationalize the be-jeezus out
of those numbers and do some remarkable "numbers"
while performing on this stage...a sort of
"American Idle" show. :-)

Let's take raw numbers, such as 46,655 ARRL
member Techs in 1996. Compare those to 350,455
Techs as of 7 May 05 of 350,455. That's a delta
of a "mere" 303,800!

A few years ago, I thought that it would be
"remarkable" if just a quarter of all licensees
would be Techs. NOW it is edging up to HALF of
ALL ham licensees!

ARRL bias, as revealed through the pages of QST,
is still towards "working DX on HF with CW."
QST still has a column of "The World Above 50
MHz," as if that was still a strange planet. :-)