"Ryan, KC8PMX" wrote in message
...

"Larry Roll K3LT" wrote in message
...

Now that it seems as though code testing will finally be abolished in
the
ARS, let's amuse ourselves with a bit of speculation as to what this
will
mean in terms of future growth in the numbers of licensed amateur radio
operators in the United States. What do you think will happen? How
much growth do you think will occur, and how fast?

We may have an initial inrush of some newbies in the onset, but it will
flatten back out to where it is about right now is my prediction. Its
from
a "marketing" standpoint. The hobby just is not promoted like it should
or
could be. Once us existing licensee's hit up our friends and family, that
is usually it. (kinda sounds a bit like Amway!)

Actually the biggest problem is lack of activity by the current hams. If we
take the figure of 600,000+ hams and calculate the number of QSOs per day if
each one had one QSO per YEAR (assume it takes two hams for a qso), thats
300,000 exchanges per year or nearly 1000 per day. That would keep the
bands pretty busy. But instead we hear the same people over and over on the
VHF and HF frequencies. We have 150 members or so in our club and I only
hear about a dozen on the repeater regularly. It's the same dozen that do
VHF simplex and SSB. We need to get those already licensed more involved.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE