These are the number of current,
unexpired FCC-issued amateur
radio licenses held by individuals
on the stated dates, and the
percentage of the total number
of active licenses that class contains.

Percentages may not add up to exactly
100.0% due to rounding.

These totals do not include licenses
that have expired but are in the grace
period, nor do they include club, military
and other station-only licenses.

Effective April 15, 2000, FCC no longer issued
new Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced
class licenses, so the numbers of those license
classes have declined steadily since then.

Also since April 15, 2000, FCC has renewed all
existing Technician Plus licenses as Technician.
It is therefore informative to consider the totals of
the two classes, since the Technician class
includes a significant number of Technician Plus
licenses renewed as Technician.

Due the renewing of Technician Pluses as Technicians, the number of
Novices now exceeds the number of Technician Pluses.


On February 23, 2007, the last Morse Code
test element, the 5 wpm receiving test, was
eliminated as a requirement.

The ARS License Numbers:

As of May 14, 2000:

Novice- 49,329 (7.3%)
Technician - 205,394 (30.4%)
Technician Plus - 128,860 (19.1%)
General - 112,677 (16.7%)
Advanced - 99,782 (14.8%)
Extra - 78,750 (11.7%)

Total Tech/TechPlus - 334,254 (49.5%)

Total all classes - 674,792


As of February 22, 2007:

Novice - 22,896 (3.5%)
Technician - 293,508 (44.8%)
Technician Plus - 30,818 (4.7%)
General - 130,138 (19.9%)
Advanced - 69,050 (10.5%)
Extra - 108,270 (16.5%)

Total Tech/TechPlus - 324,326 (49.5%)

Total all classes - 654,680


As of February 23, 2008:

Novice - 20,119 (3.1%)
Technician - 297,709 (45.3%)
Technician Plus - 18,973 (2.9%)
General - 142,812 (21.7%)
Advanced - 64,883 (9.9%)
Extra - 112,411 (17.1%)

Total Tech/TechPlus - 316,682 (48.2%)

Total all classes - 656,857


Changes:

From May 14, 2000, to February 22, 2007:

Novice - decrease of 26,433
Technician - increase of 88,114
Technician Plus - decrease of 98,042
General - increase of 17,461
Advanced - decrease of 30,732
Extra - increase of 29,520

Total Tech/TechPlus - decrease of 9,928

Total all classes - decrease of 20,112


From May 14, 2000, to February 23, 2008:

Novice - decrease of 29,210
Technician - increase of 92,315
Technician Plus - decrease of 109,887
General - increase of 30,135
Advanced - decrease of 34,949
Extra - increase of 33,661

Total Tech/TechPlus - decrease of 17,572

Total all classes - decrease of 17,935


From February 22, 2007, to February 23, 2008:

Novice - decrease of 2,777
Technician - increase of 4,201
Technician Plus - decrease of 11,845
General - increase of 12,674
Advanced - decrease of 4,217
Extra - increase of 4,141

Total Tech/TechPlus - decrease of 7,644

Total all classes - increase of 2,177


73 de Jim, N2EY