On May 4, 7:22�am, "KH6HZ" wrote:
wrote:
Nope...I think we're getting all the "influx" now that we will.

The decline in licensing continues unabated.

Well, maybe. But according to the numbers I've seen and posted in
recent months, the number of current, unexpired FCC-issued amateur
licenses held by individuals seems to have leveled off at around
655,000.

With the exception of a minor uptick in October '06, the number of licens
ed
amateurs has been in decline since '03
.
Feb 07: 655,477. Mar 07: 655,048 Apr 07: 654,940

The number I have for May 1, 2007 is 655,069. However, it should be
noted that the total number can vary up and down a couple of hundred
in just a few days.

Where are the "hoards of technically savvy" people in the wings "just
waiting for the code requirement to disappear"?

There are three possibilities:

1) They don't know the rules changed back in February.

2) They're busy studying for the written test, finding a VE session,
etc.

3) They don't exist.

---

There's also the idea that one of the purposes of amateur radio is to
*create* technically-savvy people. That's one reason for the emphasis
on young people. Like a kid who got his first license years before
high school, and the Extra years before college.


I've said it before and here it is again...Amateur Radio does NOT need
"big numbers"...We need to have QUALITY licensees...That means solid
skills and a NON-COMPROMISED question pool like we have today.

Exactly. History has proven time and time again that quality, not quantit
y,
is the solution to most problems.

Why can't we have both quality and big numbers?

And just what are "big numbers", anyway?

Back in the late 1940s, all through the 1950s and into the early
1960s, the number of US hams grew from about 60,000 just after VJ-Day
to about 250,000 in 1964, even though all hams back then had to pass
Morse Code exams and "secret" written tests.

Yet ham radio was far less popular back then than it is today, because
the ratio of hams to total US population was much lower then than
today.

The 1970s and early 1980s were another period of fast growth, even
though the license test requirements had been considerably increased
by the "incentive licensing" changes of 1968 and 1969.

73 de Jim, N2EY