"AF6AY" wrote in
oups.com:



In general I agree with you Mike. I've had some trouble getting
to the website where Hans got his numbers; www.ncvec.org doesn't
have any page with that information.

Other than that, amateur radio licensee numbers MUST remain "up"
in order to indicate to the government there is a "presence" of
citizens in a sizeable number that deserves attention. There
are many different radio services regulated by the FCC and
amateur radio is a minority among those.

Agreed. I'm glad someone got that into this conversation. That we
have these allocations at all is a minor miracle. Numerical preservation
is one of the ways that we will keep them, IMO.

Why? Some have speculated that the majority of that drop-off
was a
change in communication habits, ie. Hams who got their licenses for
purposes of "calling home" to check in, or get a grocery list, or the
like. Some call that flavor of Ham a "honeydo" Ham. These people are
served by Cell phones now.

Based on my experience in southern California, I took the
"honey-do" license reason as pure speculation on others' part.
What I have seen here in the last decade is: (1). A rapid
growth of cellular in its present compact HT form; (2). a
growth of "technician" type VHF and UHF activity which had
already begun well back before the year 2000 Restructuring.

Yes, most of the reasons given are spectulation, and when that
happens we tend to inject our own personal views into that speculation. I
don't really know the cause of the drop-off, am just making a (hopefully)
intelligent guess. 8^)


Caveat: I live in a large urban population area, not unlike
the NYC-LI, Chicago, San Francisco ('Bay Area'), Seattle, etc.
areas. VHF-UHF at LOS paths works well in such areas. But,
there is another part of VHF-UHF radio activity that doesn't
quite have the parallel of HF DX hunting, in-person get-
togethers, spontaneous or planned.

From th etimes that I was out there, that would be VHF nirvana,
tall mountains and fairly flat valleys. I suspect the canyons might be a
little challenging tho'. Back here in PA we have nice mountains, but so
many foothills and corduroy valleys that make repeater work a little more
challenging. But even that can be overcome with effort and fairly deep
pockets. We have a very good local repeater system, with several polling
stations on the local mountains that vote on which signal gets to the
main repeater. A 300 mw HT cam be used over almost the entire county.


There's more activity of radio amateurs above 30 MHz than
what the "HF" amateurs think, especially in larger urban
areas.

We're certainly busy on VHF here. State College is considered the
"smallest metropolitan area in the country...8^)


Those who operate above 30 MHz should never be
thought of or even considered as "second-class" amateurs
of the "shack on a belt" category.

Absolutely. I've often thought that there was a natural divide
between HF and VHF+. Disregarding 6 meters, which is kind of a mishmash,
it can almost be two different hobbies. I gravitate toward HF myself, but
there is cool stuff happening at VHF and above. And so what if a Hams
hobby is confined to "the repeater" anyhow?


I have personally seen a surge of new Hams in our area. We've
been
having a 2 percent growth in our area since *before* the testing
change, and assuming that tonights testing is successful, 2 new
generals and a Technician will be added to the ranks this evening.
Those new guys don't know a thing about what the Honeydo hams were
doing ten years ago, and don't particularly care either. They have
become interested in Ham radio, and we've encouraged them every step
of the way. We've been selling the sizzle.

There's a problem with using anecdotal evidence: It is too
limited to apply to the national scene. Changes in licensing
patterns FOR the national area can only be derived from national
licensing information. I can say my 91352 ZIP area has 78 hams
with over 2/3 of those at Tech or Tech-Plus category but it
means little for a national amateur radio condition. Yes, at
my test session on 25 Feb 07 over half were there to get or to
upgrade from Technician licenses. Doesn't mean much to looking
at the overall national scene.

Our situation is truly a "single data point". My thoughts on that are
that we are working hard to prove that with an inclusive atmosphere
(critical) and selling that sizzle, we seem to be making it work.

There are so many facets to Ham radio - Experimentation, Olde tyme
radio, voice, digital, simple OOK Morse comms. Public service,
contesting, DX'ing, homebrewing, SWD radio, Offroading comms, and on and
on. the ARS should almost be selling itself. And the serendipitious finds
it's way into the picture too. I never would have thought that I would
get into hollow state technology, as I am heavily into the latest
technology too. Go figure!

My main point is that with good representatives, Ham radio
shouldn't be a hard sell.



BTW, as to Dee Flint's other comment in this thread, the "pros"
in electronics HAVE been informed of the code test elimination
since December, 2006. EDN and Electronic Design, both industry
trades of wide distribution, and SPECTRUM, the membership
magazine of the IEEE had news of that prior to 23 Feb 07. There
were brief mentions of it in various Pentron industry trade
news, even the occasional newspaper "filler" story around the
country. It wasn't known just to already-licensed radio amateurs
but to a larger segment of the electronics-oriented public.

Knowledge that Ham radio "exists" is nice, I suppose. Even better
would be that people understand that they might want to get involved.

Just one example might be APRS. Although I find it a little creepy,
helicoptering parents might find it interesting to know where their
offspring are. I'm pretty convinced that a PSK31 enabled 2 meter
"texter" radio would be popular among high schoolers and even older hams.
Something like that should have been available some years ago. You could
even combine it all into one unit.

This isn't rocket science, just pipe dreaming something that might
be an interesting element of the hobby. Who says that we all have to be
doing the same thing?


- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -