On Feb 26, 1:37 pm, Klystron wrote:
wrote:

Whatever your view of the *test*, Morse Code is still in wide use in
amateur radio.
Therefore, by definition, skill in its use is neither useless nor
obsolete for hams.

Of course, that sort of tautology would still hold if there were an

FCC regulation that all ham radio conversation must take place in Latin
and all new hams must pass a test in Latin.

That doesn't follow.

There isn't a regulation that radio amateurs must use Morse Code on
the air. Yet they do - by choice.
So having the skills to use it is neither useless nor obsolete.

No, 6 years is the right number if the grace period is being
considered. Here's why:

If the license term is 10 years and the grace period is 2 years and
the likelihood of
a ham dying is the same for any given year, then the median value is
halfway through
that combined 12 year period. Which is 6 years.

IOW, all else being equal, half of the hams who die in the 12 year
license-term-plus-grace-period
interval will do so in the first 6 years, and half will do so in the
second 6 years.

If the grace period is not considered, the median value happens at 5
years.

I disagree. All hams will get the full 2 year grace period AFTER they
die (assuming that the FCC is not told of their deaths). It is a
constant, not a variable. 'Term of license remaining at time of death'
is the only variable. It has an expected value of 5 years. The full
grace period is added to that by default.

There's a mistake in your reasoning, I think.

Put another way, my assumption is that all hams will renew their
licenses for as long as they live.

That's not valid assumption, though. The renewal window is 90 days
before expiration but two years after expiration. A considerable
number of hams renew in the grace period. How many? I do not know

Even if they die the day before the
end of their final term, they will still get the full 2 year grace.

Of course. But at the same time, they could renew on the last day of
the grace period, too.

For
your model to hold, they would have to allow their final term of license
to expire and then live on into the grace period.

Which does happen. Some hams just forget, others need time to figure
out the new regs, etc. 90 days isn't that long of a time.

And some just lose interest, for a variety of reasons besides death.
This isn't a new thing - read some ham's bios, and more than a few
talk about how work, family, and other things crowded out ham radio
for them at some point, they sold their equipment and let their
license expire, and then came back years later. From the standpoint of
license numbers, it doesn't matter if a ham dies or just lets the
license expire, the same effect happens.

Actually, we need not consider the grace period at all, because we
have sources of numbers for the current, nonexpired numbers of
licenses.

73 de Jim, N2EY