"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