wrote:

Mike Coslo wrote:

wrote:

From: on 10 May 2005 09:11:19 -0700

Yes Sweetums, a lousy 0.7% drop in total membership in 8.5 years is
not a dramatic anything. In fact it indicates a rather comfortable

level

of stability so all is well in Newington.


Has ARRL membership EVER gotten as high as a
quarter of all licensed U.S. amateurs?

On "8.5 years is not a dramatic anything," that's
a rather gross fluff-off, "sweetums."

Agreed.


But my math says the drop is more like almost 13%.

Sources are the ARRL annual reports at:

http://www2.remote.arrl.org/announce/annualreport/


1997 (highest membership) 177,396

2003 (last year I have an annual report for) 154,545

22,851 members were lost in that time.

Wouldn't a .7 % drop be more like 1242 members leaving?

Hard to say that that sort of drop isn't dramatic!

- Mike KB3EIA -


Apologies for being repetitious here but sometimes that's what it takes
. . When I asked Sumner for the by-class breakdown he wrote that the
last available data he has is from August *1996* as reported in the
February 1997 issue of QST.

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

Total members Aug. 1996 = 152,809

If you have a problem with this don't bore me with it, take it up with
Sumner.

From the ARRL Annual Report for 1996 source

http://www.arrl.org/announce/annualreport/

On page 5, they announce the numbers:
175,023 members

The following year was the year that the ARRL experienced its all time
peak membership:

177,396.


So whether I'm boring you or not, you were the one bragging about your
smarts in going to "the source". I went to a source too. Mine aren't
broken down by class, but you would have to admit that 22,214 is a
significant difference when the total numbers are compared.

One of us is wrong with the numbers. Maybe your source made a mistake?
Or maybe *all* those annual reports were wrong. Which do you think more
likely?


- mike KB3EIA -