Another thread got me thinking about the number of active Hams.


Just what percentage of Amateurs are active ones, defining active as
either being on the air regularly, or participating in Amateur related
activities on a regular basis? (like say on a weekly basis?)


Thoughts?


- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -

Certainly it is less than 50%, probably less than a third. I seem to recall
hearing a number like 20%, but that is back in some pretty fuzzy gray
matter.

Probably a pretty tough thing to get a handle on. If you were to sample
some random group of licensees, some of the active ones wouldn't respond,
and probably most of the inactive ones wouldn't. So you would know up front
you had a large error, and I can't think of a way to get a handle on how
large. You could probably assume most of the non-responders weren't active,
but certainly not all, and no way to get a handle on that fraction.

...

"Michael Coslo" wrote in message
...
Another thread got me thinking about the number of active Hams.


Just what percentage of Amateurs are active ones, defining active as
either being on the air regularly, or participating in Amateur related
activities on a regular basis? (like say on a weekly basis?)


Thoughts?


- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -

"Michael Coslo" wrote in message
...


Just what percentage of Amateurs are active ones, defining active as either
being on the air regularly, or participating in Amateur related activities on
a regular basis? (like say on a weekly basis?)


First, I'd argue that your definition of "active" is much too restrictive. I
consider myself "active" in the hobby but my activity isn't on a "regular basis"
and certainly not "weekly". I live in rural southern Arizona and have offices
and keep apartments in two other cities, one 100 miles away and another 700
miles away. About 1/3 of my time is spent in each of these locations, and I
keep a station only at home. I may go for many months without turning the
transmitter on, then have 1,500 contacts in a weekend contest, or just a couple
of ragchews or DX contacts.

In my life I have sometimes not had a station for a year or two, but didn't
consider myself an inactive ham. I also know a ham who has been
transmitter-less for at least 15 years, but plans to return to the air. Still
subscribes to all the magazines and belongs to CADXA up in Phoenix (he's on the
Honor Roll). His work has just not allowed him to operate, but has not
abandoned the hobby and considers himself "active".

So I'll use a different definition of active --- keeps his/her license current,
gets on the air at least a couple of times a year, or if currently off the air
he/she expects to be back on the air in the future. By that definition I'd
estimate that 75% of the current US license holders can be consider active.

The Man in the Maze
QRL at Baboquivari Peak, AZ

--
Iitoi

So I'll use a different definition of active --- keeps his/her license
current,

I think keeping your license current is the only requirement for the
definition of an 'active' ham. Keeping your license current implies either
on-air activity or the intention of returning to on-air activity at some
point in the future.

Iitoi wrote:
"Michael Coslo" wrote in message
...

Just what percentage of Amateurs are active ones, defining active as either
being on the air regularly, or participating in Amateur related activities on
a regular basis? (like say on a weekly basis?)


First, I'd argue that your definition of "active" is much too restrictive. I
consider myself "active" in the hobby but my activity isn't on a "regular basis"
and certainly not "weekly". I live in rural southern Arizona and have offices
and keep apartments in two other cities, one 100 miles away and another 700
miles away. About 1/3 of my time is spent in each of these locations, and I
keep a station only at home. I may go for many months without turning the
transmitter on, then have 1,500 contacts in a weekend contest, or just a couple
of ragchews or DX contacts.

I'll concede that it is pretty hard to define what "active" is. If this
were a proper poll, we'd want to get feedback on the different levels of
activity.

I'd have to say that I'd consider your description above as being active.


So I'll use a different definition of active --- keeps his/her license current,
gets on the air at least a couple of times a year, or if currently off the air
he/she expects to be back on the air in the future. By that definition I'd
estimate that 75% of the current US license holders can be consider active.


The number seems a little high to me, but that's good feedback anyhoo.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -

"Michael Coslo" wrote in message
...
Iitoi wrote:
"Michael Coslo" wrote in message
...

[snip]

So I'll use a different definition of active --- keeps his/her license
current, gets on the air at least a couple of times a year, or if
currently off the air he/she expects to be back on the air in the future.
By that definition I'd estimate that 75% of the current US license
holders can be consider active.


The number seems a little high to me, but that's good feedback anyhoo.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -


I would exclude those who "intend" to get back on the air as far as being
active goes. Many intentions never materialize. I'd consider them inactive
until they actually do get back on the air.

Dee, N8UZE

Michael Coslo wrote:

Just what percentage of Amateurs are active ones, defining active as
either being on the air regularly, or participating in Amateur related
activities on a regular basis? (like say on a weekly basis?)

As others have said, this is tough to get a handle on since one of the
things it depends on is the definition of "active".

There are not many numeric measures of activity, but one that comes to
mind is the number of people who vote in the election for ARRL Section
Manager. In the following, the number of votes is taken from the ARRL
web site and the number of hams from
http://www.speroni.com/FCC/ARRL/State1A.html

Kentucky, Feb. 2007, 527 votes, 8534 hams, 6% voted.
Texas, Feb. 2007, 1577 votes, 42,949 hams, 4% voted.
New Hampshire, May 2007, 513 votes, 4825 hams, 11% voted.

You can speculate about how much correlation there is between "active
ham" and "voted in ARRL election for SM". I am certainly NOT suggesting
that this is an accurate measure of the activity level of the ham radio
community, but it's an interesting number.

73, Steve KB9X

Steve Bonine wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote:

Just what percentage of Amateurs are active ones, defining active as
either being on the air regularly, or participating in Amateur related
activities on a regular basis? (like say on a weekly basis?)

As others have said, this is tough to get a handle on since one of the
things it depends on is the definition of "active".

There are not many numeric measures of activity, but one that comes to
mind is the number of people who vote in the election for ARRL Section
Manager. In the following, the number of votes is taken from the ARRL
web site and the number of hams from
http://www.speroni.com/FCC/ARRL/State1A.html

Kentucky, Feb. 2007, 527 votes, 8534 hams, 6% voted.
Texas, Feb. 2007, 1577 votes, 42,949 hams, 4% voted.
New Hampshire, May 2007, 513 votes, 4825 hams, 11% voted.

You can speculate about how much correlation there is between "active
ham" and "voted in ARRL election for SM". I am certainly NOT suggesting
that this is an accurate measure of the activity level of the ham radio
community, but it's an interesting number.

73, Steve KB9X


I think the only way to settle this question is to conduct a
well-designed survey with a ramdom sample of hams.

If there are any statisticians among the readers, please tell us how
many hams we'd have to sample to get a valid measurement.

73, Bill W1AC

(Filter QRM for direct replies)

Bill W1AC wrote:

I think the only way to settle this question is to conduct a
well-designed survey with a ramdom sample of hams.

This one is tricky. With most surveys, there's no correlation between
the response rate and what you're trying to measure. If you're asking
for someone's opinion on an issue, you do a survey and get 10% response,
you can assume that the results are valid even though 90% of the people
who received the survey didn't bother to respond.

In a survey that asks licensed hams if they're active, if you get 10%
response, do you assume that the other 90% are inactive hams? No, you
can't do that. But you have to assume that an active ham is more likely
to respond to a survey about ham radio than an inactive one. Thus the
response is likely to be significantly skewed towards activity.

If there are any statisticians among the readers, please tell us how
many hams we'd have to sample to get a valid measurement.

For opinion surveys, the more you survey, the higher the accuracy. In
this case, I'm not sure that adding more people to the survey improves
the accuracy since active hams are more likely to respond. The key is
how to interpret the non-responders, something that seems unknowable.

I don't claim to be a statistician, so I would appreciate comments from
someone who is.

73, Steve KB9X

Steve Bonine wrote:
Bill W1AC wrote:

I think the only way to settle this question is to conduct a
well-designed survey with a ramdom sample of hams.

This one is tricky. With most surveys, there's no correlation between
the response rate and what you're trying to measure. If you're asking
for someone's opinion on an issue, you do a survey and get 10% response,
you can assume that the results are valid even though 90% of the people
who received the survey didn't bother to respond.

In a survey that asks licensed hams if they're active, if you get 10%
response, do you assume that the other 90% are inactive hams? No, you
can't do that. But you have to assume that an active ham is more likely
to respond to a survey about ham radio than an inactive one. Thus the
response is likely to be significantly skewed towards activity.

If there are any statisticians among the readers, please tell us how
many hams we'd have to sample to get a valid measurement.

For opinion surveys, the more you survey, the higher the accuracy. In
this case, I'm not sure that adding more people to the survey improves
the accuracy since active hams are more likely to respond. The key is
how to interpret the non-responders, something that seems unknowable.

I don't claim to be a statistician, so I would appreciate comments from
someone who is.

73, Steve KB9X


Steve,

Those are good points.

I'd guess that a "valid" survey would have provisions to account for all
those surveyed, including a method to weed out silent keys, and
provision for guarding against "false positives", i.e., knee-jerk "Yes,
I'm active" responses.

What little I remember from college statistics tells me that the design
of the questions is all-important. The survey mustn't cue the respondent
as to "right" or "wrong" answers, and must provide "discriminator"
questions to confirm and/or deny the accuracy of previous answers.

It's a job for an expert: if we called someone up and asked "Are you
active?", the results would be skewed, as you point out. However, if the
question is, e.g. "Will you help with disaster preparedness as a ham?",
you risk getting a "novelty" response, i.e., a respondent who says "Yes"
just because he/she hasn't done it before.

Questions about purchasing are less likely to show bias, but there's
always the problem of "what do the answers mean?": if a ham says he's
going to buy a new rig this year, is he just trying to please the
questioner, is he window shopping, or is he just wishing out loud?

This is all theoretical, of course. The first issue is to define what
"active" means, and then we'd need a survey that accurately measures the
ham population for that metric. Short of putting remote RF sensors at a
statistically-valid percentage of ham operator's homes, I'm out of ideas.

HTH.

Bill

--
73,

Bill W1AC

(Remove "73" and change top level domain for direct replies)