Dee Flint wrote:

1. Who won the pool?

See new thread on that subject.

2. It will be interesting to follow the numbers on the licenses.
Please give consideration to either excluding the Novice license class
entirely or reporting it as a separate item. This puts a different light
on the so-called decline of amateur radio. This group is almost entirely
inactive, not renewing, and not relevant to the growth or decline of
amateur radio anymore.

Also it might be interesting if you post three sets of numbers:

1. As of May 2000 as you have been doing.
2. As of the effective date of the implementation of no-code testing.
3. The current number of licensees.

I intend to report all current, unexpired FCC amateur radio licenses
held by individuals, sorted by license class. I also intend to include
the May 14, 2000 numbers and the numbers from the effective date of the
R&O.

Three sets of numbers, but only one set will change.

My predictions are that there will be numerous upgrades but little to no
impact on the overall growth of ham radio.

We'll see. For a few years after the 2000 restructuring we saw growth,
but since then we have seen more decline.

The Novice class, IMHO, consists of three groups:

1) A small number of active hams

2) An unknown number of inactive hams who haven't got the word yet,
haven't gotten around to upgrading, or who are waiting for a no-test
upgrade.

3) An unknown number of totally inactive hams who will disappear from
the database once their licenses expire.

While 2) may seem unrealistic, even today I encounter hams who either
don't know about or don't understand the 2000 restructuring. I also
encounter amateurs who think that their Advanced will soon be
auto-upgraded to Extra, or their Tech Plus to General, even though FCC
has repeatedly denied proposals to do such things.

73 de Jim, N2EY