I differ with that figure, I think it is inflated about half, this is
VERY apparent when tuning the bands...

I doubt that it's any more inflated today than it was decades
before.



Good grief!! So you can tell from listening to the bands how many hams
there are. WOW!! Do you think all 600,000+ licensed operators are on at
the same time?

Only on the frequency I'm trying to snag that rare DX on.. :-)

But to a first order approximation the ratio of people
actually transmitting right now to the total number of
hams would be essentially constant.