What is missing is how much current licenses are used. With that data
we could guesstimate expirations. That would take a study that the FCC
doesn't have the resources to fund and one the ARRL may not want to
know the answer to.

There may be a point in the future where the new loss of members begins
to increase but there is no way to forecast that because licenses are
good for 10 years and there is no way to project future expirations
because we don't have any idea what current license usage is.

Measuring how crowded the bands are? But that would require
measurements from years ago to mean much. Assuming that most
hams using their license spend about 2 to 3% time transmitting and
the rest listening (tuning around the bands looking for interesting
DX or rag chews) one could get a rough idea how many active
hams exist. Do one measurement on a contest weekend, and another
on a non contest weekend. From a QTH in the midwest. One would
have to figure how many hams are in propagation range at the
time of measurement.

robert casey wrote:

What is missing is how much current licenses are used. With that data
we could guesstimate expirations. That would take a study that the FCC
doesn't have the resources to fund and one the ARRL may not want to
know the answer to.

There may be a point in the future where the new loss of members begins
to increase but there is no way to forecast that because licenses are
good for 10 years and there is no way to project future expirations
because we don't have any idea what current license usage is.

Measuring how crowded the bands are? But that would require
measurements from years ago to mean much. Assuming that most
hams using their license spend about 2 to 3% time transmitting and
the rest listening (tuning around the bands looking for interesting
DX or rag chews) one could get a rough idea how many active
hams exist. Do one measurement on a contest weekend, and another
on a non contest weekend. From a QTH in the midwest. One would
have to figure how many hams are in propagation range at the
time of measurement.

Reminds me of an old giggler.

Guy tunes around looking for a hole on 20M, finds one and asks "Is this
frequency in use?"

A snarly 30 over nine signal pops up "Yes it's in use, I'm listening on
it."

w3rv

For those that don't these
are the ones that have the answers as to why, for example the cell phone -
instant messaging fits their needs and interest better. I don't know if
the ARRL even bothers to try and collect this kind of data.


This competition, coupled with the testing requirements,
sure puts ham radio at a disadvantage. How many kids,
saddled with tons of tests and other such from school,
really want to be bothered with more of this?

In article ,
Mike Coslo wrote:

John Smith wrote:
Every student going though the electronics and engineering courses
at the college here knows very well what a ham ticket is (the
instructor is a ham), and darn well pass any of the exams
blindfolded... seldom do they see the need or have the desire when
they have tuned the bands and listened...

You think most other colleges are different?

Dunno. Where I am employed, one of the EE courses specifically ends
in a Ham ticket being received.

My point is that Internet and cell phones are to Ham radio as fish
are to banjos. 8^)

This is starting to sound like an over the air Ham conversation.
Exchanges like this are why I have no desire to be one.

Maybe you could drop rec.radio.shortwave off the newsgroup header like I
did.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California