"Dee Flint" wrote

My prediction is that on the one year anniversary of the implementation
that the total numbers of of ARS licenses (excluding the categories that
N2EY excludes for consistency) will not differ from the numbers on the
implementation date by more than 1% either direction (plus or minus).

Anyone else? You can pick either "+" or "-" or "+/-". It must also be a
whole percentage not a fraction.

N8UZE, +/- 1%

Speroni doesn't have final figures for December. Using November as a
baseline, there are 657k hams.

Since April '03 (43 months) there has been a net loss of 30k hams, or
roughly 700/mo.

A 1% loss would be 6600. 700*12=8400. Or, 1.25%

I would conclude that, on the face, your guess is probably accurate. I would
guess more 0 to -1%. I doubt you will see a positive 1% growth.



In addition, it is my belief that "growth" won't really occur until the
"cell phone substitute" hams have let their license expire. Although cell
phones have been around for awhile now, they didn't really get affordable
on a family basis until roughly the year 2000. So that means little to no
growth until roughly the year 2010 in my opinion. At that time we will
also see the last of the Novice licenses virtually disappear as they will
either have upgraded or allowed their license to lapse. There may be a
few that continue to renew at that level but it will be few and far
between.

I do not think you will see any "growth" at all.

I think numbers will continue to decline, and then "bottom out" at a minimum
number. Once that point is reached, the number will remain relatively the
same, +/- a few thousand, depending on renewal/expiration cycles. I do not
think you will see this happen until sometime around 2012.

73
KH6HZ