In article , Radio Amateur KC2HMZ
writes:

Heckuva lot of growth in the number of no-code Techs, though.

Not really. See below.

So if
the total number of hams hasn't increased, the number of hams with the
other classes of license must have decreased accordingly in order to
keep up. Or are guys reverse-upgrading to Technician nowadays?

Three things:

- the number of US hams has increased by about 11,000 since May of 2000

- since April 15, 2000, the FCC has been renewing Tech Pluses as Techs, and not
issuing any new Tech Pluses. The number of Tech Pluses has dropped by over
61,000 since that happened.

- since April 15, 2000, the FCC has been granting Tech licenses (as opposed to
Tech Pluses) to Novices who pass Element 2 or produce the relevant CSCEs, and
not issuing any new Novices. The number of Novices has dropped by over 15,000
since that happened.

How many of those hams listed as Technicians in the database are not code
tested, vs. those who are? Almost impossible to say.

But look at these numbers:

Total Tech and Tech Plus as of May 14, 2000: 334,254

Total Tech and Tech Plus as of June 30, 2003: 324,004

Total Novice, Tech and Tech Plus as of May 14, 2000: 383,528

Total Novice, Tech and Tech Plus as of June 30, 2003: 363,800

For a bimonthly listing of the various totals, see the thread "ARS License
Numbers" and look for posts by me around the first and fifteenth of each month.
That thread goes back about two years, and compares present totals to those on
May 14, 2000 - one month after the restructuring changes. That date was chosen
as a benchmark for a number of reasons, such as the fact that the VECs,and FCC
were running a tremendous backlog in April 2000, so the numbers were far from
current back then.

73 de Jim, N2EY