Klystron wrote:
Alan WA4SCA wrote:

So perhaps the code issue wasn't all that important, anyway.


Perhaps it is just ONE factor among many. Other factors may include:


* the almost complete lack of any reporting of this change to the world
outside ham radio. I would like to see a poll that asks people what they
know about this. My guess is that if you take one step outside of ham
radio circles, you will find that no one knows anything about it.

It would be interesting for sure. Ham Radio is one of those niche
activities that isn't geared toward the average person. And that really
isn't all that bad a thing. Some people pick hobbies because a lot of
other people are doing the same thing, Others pick ones like amateur
astronomy or Ham radio because its what they enjoy.

At any rate, its all good, I think.


* the aging (and death) of the ham population. The ten year license
term means that, on average, it will be five years before a dead ham is
dropped from the rolls, assuming that his heirs do not notify the FCC.

Isn't it great that Ham radio can be still pursued by older folks? I
know that that is a bit of a non sequitar, but the thought just crossed
my mind. 8^)


In sum, I believe that the small change in licensing numbers does not
rise to the level of statistical significance.

In an overall sense, it is a little hard to come to a definitive idea of
how many are active, and most analysis only gives us rough trends.

I am pleased that the FCC is issuing a goodly number of new licenses,
and that at least the big dropoff is at least negated for the present. I
personally am happy with only a small increase in numbers.


Given the magnitude of
the unknowable quantities described above, we probably cannot tell
whether the population of live, active hams has grown or shrunken. Is
there a statistician in the house? I would like to see an estimate of
the margin of uncertainty of those numbers (plus or minus x percent),
given the various unknown factors.


I think that production of stats on active Hams is very difficult,
certainly it can't be gleaned from totals.

- 73 de Mike N3LI -

Michael Coslo wrote on Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:52:59 EST:

Klystron wrote:
Alan WA4SCA wrote:

* the aging (and death) of the ham population. The ten year license
term means that, on average, it will be five years before a dead ham is
dropped from the rolls, assuming that his heirs do not notify the FCC.

Isn't it great that Ham radio can be still pursued by older folks? I
know that that is a bit of a non sequitar, but the thought just crossed
my mind. 8^)

Please define 'older folks.' That remark seems to me to be verging
too close to that of a confrontational remark. :-(

The practice of operating a radio has never been any sort of test
of athletic ability or that of stamina or physical strength only
possible by those in the 20s and 30s age groups.

The 25th of February 2008 was the first anniversary of my passing
my first amateur radio license test. That day was close to the
51st anniversary of my passing my first commercial radiotelephone
operator's test at age 23. I was 74 on 25 Feb 07 and it was no
more difficult nor easier a year ago than it was to pass a
similar FCC test 52 years ago.

Since I've kept daily statistics pages from both www.arrl.org and
www.hamdata.org, here's some items of information of the past year
(25 February, 2007 to 2008) from Hamdata that isn't reported on
the ARRL license stats page:

No Longer Licensed [Expired] : 26,127
NEW : 27,211 (positive offset by 1,084)

Class Changes : 32,021

License numbers, total of ALL amateur radio licenses -
2 July 2003 : 737,938
25 Feb 2008 : 722,588 (deficit of 15,350)

About the only thing one can infer from those is that there IS
a small increase in newcomers versus expirees...but the total
of all licenses is still short of what it was about 4 1/2
years ago. At the present rate of license totals increase,
that deficit will not be offset for another 15 to 16 years.

The number of existing-license class changes has been larger
for this past year than previous one-year periods. That seems
to be the major outfall of the latest change in regulations for
amateur radio licenses.

In sum, I believe that the small change in licensing numbers does not
rise to the level of statistical significance.

In an overall sense, it is a little hard to come to a definitive idea of
how many are active, and most analysis only gives us rough trends.

The word ACTIVE has two meanings as used in this thread. The
'active' amateur radio licensees in the FCC use of the word
refers to the license itself; i.e., whether it is valid for
legal operation of a transmitter as required by a particular
radio service. The word 'active' as many use it elsewhere
refers to whether or not one USES a license for the purpose of
transmitting (as required by law). There are no definitive
statistics on USE insofar as an amateur radio license that
I've seen.

I think that production of stats on active Hams is very difficult,
certainly it can't be gleaned from totals.

I disagree. One of the major uses of the first major computer
systems was searching, sorting, and compiling totals of some
programmed-in sorted-for subject. That was a selling point for
the old IBM punched-card tabulator in electro-mechanical IT
operations of the 1940s. Today it is greatly aided by the mass
memories of 250 GB to 2 TB hard drives...which anyone can buy
for reasonable cost off-the-shelf at places like Fry's
Electronics. Sorting and searching programming methods have
been well-known to IT programmers for half a century.

The FCC daily and weekly database files are all available to
anyone with high-speed access capabilities. Each is so large
in size that using a dial-up connection would require about
a half day to download. ALL statistical website providers use
the SAME database so none is more 'official' than others.
What the statistics providers DO with their data is up to them.

There isn't any sampling or 'plus or minus percentage' in
regard to the FCC license class information in its database
files. It isn't a result of polling of any kind. It is data
direct from the only agency that grants amateur radio
licenses in the USA. Totals are what they are.

73, Len AF6AY

AF6AY wrote:
[...]

There isn't any sampling or 'plus or minus percentage' in
regard to the FCC license class information in its database
files. It isn't a result of polling of any kind. It is data
direct from the only agency that grants amateur radio
licenses in the USA. Totals are what they are.



You missed my point. The figures for new licenses and expired
licenses are, no doubt, perfectly accurate. However, those quantities
may be eclipsed by two other variables that we cannot quantify:

1) The number of hams who have died but have not yet been dropped from
the rolls because the FCC does not know that they are dead

2) The number of hams who have stopped turning on their radios

--
Klystron

Klystron turned on his beam supply Wed, 27 Feb 2008
13:14:52 EST:

AF6AY wrote:
[...]

There isn't any sampling or 'plus or minus percentage' in
regard to the FCC license class information in its database
files. It isn't a result of polling of any kind. It is data
direct from the only agency that grants amateur radio
licenses in the USA. Totals are what they are.

You missed my point.

Not quite, :-), I was replying to Mike Coslo. :-)

The figures for new licenses and expired
licenses are, no doubt, perfectly accurate. However, those quantities
may be eclipsed by two other variables that we cannot quantify:

1) The number of hams who have died but have not yet been dropped from
the rolls because the FCC does not know that they are dead

2) The number of hams who have stopped turning on their radios

The delay of 'knowing who died' in regards to RADIO AMATEUR
licensees is only two years...the grace period. After that
and no renewal, the license expires. LICENSE expiration is
a known as far as the FCC database is concerned.

Since amateur radio is a HOBBY, not a profession, there's NO
requirement that anyone 'report in' on someone's condition.
Some become disenchanted with the activity and just quit or
have too many other activities to continue or might be laid
up with some kind of illness. It was never a requirement to
continue being an amateur radio licensee forever once granted
a license...no more so than being interested in radio long
ago was a mandate to get an amateur radio license. :-)

In my opinion, the granted license totals - even if holding
steady despite general population increases - serves as an
indicator in the USA that the amateur radio service will
continue among all the other radio services here for the
near future.

So, the licensee totals have dropped 2% in about 4 1/2 years
since mid-2003. The last year has seen a 0.15% increase in
totals, a rather insignificant gain, but a gain nonetheless.

Many years ago at a small microwave company, all of us were
curious at the absence of one technician who just didn't
show up for work. The small company, busy at keeping afloat,
didn't investigate until two months had passed. Turned out
the guy just got tired of what he was doing and 'quit'
without notifying anyone. Later, at a larger corporation,
we noticed that one engineer didn't show up for two weeks.
Corporate personnel department was notified he'd been
killed in an automobile accident, his family too involved
with that tragedy to notify his employer. There's many
reasons why someone stops doing what they were doing besides
such extremes.

73, Len AF6AY

"AF6AY" wrote in message
...
[snip]


The delay of 'knowing who died' in regards to RADIO AMATEUR
licensees is only two years...the grace period. After that
and no renewal, the license expires. LICENSE expiration is
a known as far as the FCC database is concerned.


Actually if a person died the day they received their license, it could be
12 years before it showed up not two if no one bothers to report it.

Dee, N8UZE

Dee Flint wrote:


Actually if a person died the day they received their license, it could be
12 years before it showed up not two if no one bothers to report it.

Now that would be sad! :^(

- 73 de Mike N3LI -

"Dee Flint" wrote:
"AF6AY" wrote in message
[snip]

The delay of 'knowing who died' in regards to RADIO AMATEUR
licensees is only two years...the grace period. After that
and no renewal, the license expires. LICENSE expiration is
a known as far as the FCC database is concerned.


Actually if a person died the day they received their license, it could be
12 years before it showed up not two if no one bothers to report it.



Dee is correct. Some hams may die with 10 years left on their
licenses. For others, 9 years may remain. For still others, 8 years may
remain (and so on). For the mathematically inclined, the "expected
value" equals the sum of [i as i goes from 0 days to 3652 days] divided
by 3652 days (the number of days in 10 years, including 2 leap years).
The result will be in days, so divide by 365 to get years (the answer is
5 years). Add a 2 year grace period and the AVERAGE ham will remain on
the rolls for seven years after his death.
When you consider the age demographics of ham radio, standard
actuarial tables may lead you to conclude that we are probably in the
middle of a large die off. My guess is that the number of dead hams
still on the books is far greater then the thousand or so net gain that
comes from simply subtracting expired licenses from new license grants.
Then there is the matter of hams who no longer turn on their radios,
whose number is unknowable.

--
Klystron

On Feb 27, 9:23 pm, "Dee Flint" wrote:

Actually if a person died the day they received their license, it could be

12 years before it showed up not two if no one bothers to report it.

As N3LI wrote, that would be sad!

However, when it showed up in the totals is a matter of which totals
you use.

If you use numbers that include the entire FCC database, such as
hamdata.com, you get both unexpired, current licenses and expired-but-
in-the-grace-period licenses, and it takes 12 years before an
unreported death shows up.

But if you use numbers that include only the unexpired, current
licenses, such as ARRL and AH0A, it takes 10 years before an
unreported death shows up.

Note that the terms "expire" and "expiration" refer to the end of the
10 year license term, and do not include the grace period. That's not
my definition, it's FCC's definition. Hamdata.com uses the term "no
longer hams" to indicate licenses which have reached the end of the
grace period without being renewed.

Of course in real life there are several factors which complicate the
issue and make simple conjectures inaccurate:

1) An unknown number of deaths *are* reported to FCC by family
members. Often this is done so the SK's callsign can be transferred to
another amateur in the family, or a club.

2) An unknown number of amateurs renew in the grace period.

3) Not all licenses which expire are the result of death. It is not
unknown for a licensed amateur to lose interest and let the license
not only expire but run past the end of the grace period. Years later,
the ex-ham's interest is revitalized and s/he gets a new license. This
was probably more common in the days of 5 year licenses but one still
encounters recent "retread" hams today.

73 de Jim, N2EY

AF6AY wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote on Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:52:59 EST:

Klystron wrote:
Alan WA4SCA wrote:

* the aging (and death) of the ham population. The ten year license
term means that, on average, it will be five years before a dead ham is
dropped from the rolls, assuming that his heirs do not notify the FCC.
Isn't it great that Ham radio can be still pursued by older folks? I
know that that is a bit of a non sequitar, but the thought just crossed
my mind. 8^)

Please define 'older folks.' That remark seems to me to be verging
too close to that of a confrontational remark. :-(

The practice of operating a radio has never been any sort of test
of athletic ability or that of stamina or physical strength only
possible by those in the 20s and 30s age groups.

That pretty much answers your question, Len. Lots of people who don't
"get around very well" can still have a blast. And fortunately there are
usually other Hams who can help with the more physical things like
putting up antennas, climbing towers, and the like.



About the only thing one can infer from those is that there IS
a small increase in newcomers versus expirees...but the total
of all licenses is still short of what it was about 4 1/2
years ago. At the present rate of license totals increase,
that deficit will not be offset for another 15 to 16 years.

Pretty much my take on it too.


snip



I think that production of stats on active Hams is very difficult,
certainly it can't be gleaned from totals.

I disagree. One of the major uses of the first major computer
systems was searching, sorting, and compiling totals of some
programmed-in sorted-for subject.

Perhaps I should have been more clear. It is hard to determine if a Ham
is active or not by just being licensed. An active license is not
necessarily a sign of an active ham. Even trying to define "active" is
difficult.

In that instance, I was referring to Klystron's "active".

- 73 de Mike N3LI -

On Feb 26, 2:52�pm, Michael Coslo wrote:
Klystron wrote:
Alan WA4SCA wrote:
Ham Radio is one of those niche
activities that isn't geared toward the average person.
And that really isn't all that bad a thing.

"Radio for its own sake" (which is what amateur radio is really all
about) has never been a mainstream sort of thing. Just look at
the number of licensed US hams compared to the US population
at any time since licensing began.

At any rate, its all good, I think.

Yep.

Isn't it great that Ham radio can be still pursued by older folks?

It's great that people of all ages can be hams. Young, old,
middleage, newcomers, oldtimers, etc.

In sum, I believe that the small change in licensing numbers
does not
rise to the level of statistical significance.

IMHO, what *is* statistically significant is that what was a slow
decline has turned into a slow increase. What will be interesting
is if it continues long-term.

I think that production of stats on active Hams is very difficult,
certainly it can't be gleaned from totals.

There's also the problem of what constitutes an "active" ham.
Obviously someone who is dead or who never gets on the air
or otherwise participates isn't "active".

But what about the ham who operates a few contests a year?
Or the ham who does a lot of building and experimenting, but
little operating (and whose operating is mostly to check out the
latest project)? The ham whose activity is teaching classes,
running VE sessions, Elmering (in person and online), writing,
etc.? The ham whose focus is public service? Etc.

All sorts of activity - and it's all good!

73 de Jim, N2EY