K0HB wrote:
Between February 14, 1991 and July 5, 1991, the Commission granted 1,925
new Technician class licenses under the no-code provisions. A couple of
guys have done research which shows that 1,880 of those licenses have
not been renewed or upgraded to a higher class license and are beyond
the two year grace period. That equates to a retention rate of only
2.3%.

Somehow the numbers don't seem right, or at least I don't understand
them. For the months of February through June, 2001, when most of these
licenses should have been expiring, the AH0A web site gives these numbers:

Renewals: 7380
Expiries: 2623
Grace Period Renewals: 810
Cancelations: 645

While the 1,880 number might be right, the 1,925 number almost certainly
isn't. The above suggests that about 10,000 Technician licenses came up
for renewal in the 5 month period, or about 2,000 per month. The AH0A
data shows the service has averaged about 1,500 new Tech licenses per
month over the past few years, with the monthly new license total seldom
dropping below 1,000. As the code-free Technician license was reputed
to have more popular in its first few years of existance than later on,
it seems extremely unlikely that there were only 400 new Tech licenses
issued per month between February and July of 1991, especially when
2,000 per month ended up expiring 10 years later.

My guess would be that between 80% and 85% of those licensed as no-code
Techs in that period are still engaged enough to have renewed their license.
This isn't entirely out of line with other license classes. If you picked
a random group of Extra class amateurs (who, I assume, would tend to be older)
only 75% to 80% of them would be around 10 years later.

Dennis Ferguson