In article , writes:

(N2EY) writes:

...consider what has happened in Japan, which has long had a
nocodetest QRP HF amateur license. Since 1995 the number of JA
amateur stations has been dropping, along with JARL membership. JARL
is now smaller than ARRL.

That _is_ interesting!

Check out

http://www.ah0a.org


Acourse, one wonders how their 10-year-long
recession has impacted these statistics, for example.

It ain't pretty.

Note that Japanese *operator* licenses are free and do no expire, so the number
of Japanese operator licenses is an indicator of how many people have been
licensed in Japan since the end of post-WW2 military rule (1952?). not how many
are licensed today.

Japanese *station* licenses must be renewed and cost 120 yen, as I recall. They
are more of an indication of how many active hams exist in Japan. However, note
that an operator can be active without having a station license, by using a
club station of friend's station.

I'd tend to see
it as proving that lowering the bar actually reduces interest.

That's one factor. Another is that saturation was reached. Or that amateur
radio was a fad for a while in Japan and now the fad is over.

There is also the effect of inexpensive cell phones and 'net access. I have
read that many Japanese got ham licenses and HTs for personal communication,
which have since been replaced by cell phones.

Perharps a new generation of low cost HF transceivers (CB like) will
appear on the market...

Remains to be seen. I'll be glad if it does.

What does "CB like" mean?

I just took him to mean "cheap". I can get a reasonable 40-channel CB
in any truck stop for under $100.

I doubt you'll see that in amateur radio. The trend is towards more, not less.

A prediction: We won't see significant changes in the equipment
offered for sale to radio amateurs because of changes in code test
requirements.

I'd tend to agree.

In fact, if demand increases, we may see prices rise rather than fall. Supply
and demand.

73 de Jim, N2EY