On Aug 3, 12:18 pm, Jeff Davis wrote:

Numbers are numbers I suppose but the obvious weak and unavoidable link i
n
this sort of data is that it cannot include anyone who has died with an
active license until that license expires.

Or until the ham's family reports the death to FCC with the required
paperwork. This is common, and is usually driven by the desire to keep
the SK's call active and "in the family".

And given that the average age
for radio amateurs has been increasing steadily, it's a good bet that the
re
are tens of thousands of deceased hams being included in the license tota
ls.

I don't take it as a given that the average age of hams is increasing
steadily. I don't think anyone has a *scientific* number for the
average/median age for US hams.

Yes, one occasionally sees some number or other quoted for the "average
age", but not how it was derived. FCC doesn't have complete data
because they haven't consistently required birthdate info.

Sure, if one goes to a hamfest or club meeting, one sees a lot of folks
who are probably AARP-eligible. But are those folks a representative
sample? I know more than a few younger hams who don't show up at such
gatherings because they simply don't have the time.

But yes, there are probably a considerable number of hams in the
database who are SKs.

The other immeasurable data is how many licensees are no longer active at
all yet religiously renew their license since it is free and can be done
with almost no effort? That number could be enormous and may hint at why
despite having nearly 700,000 names in the hopper, there are only some
150,000 members of the ARRL (not withstanding the naysayers).

ARRL membership has been growing, too.

I suspect that there have always been a considerable number of
inactive-but-licensed hams. Particularly for the reasons you state:
renewing is free and easy to do.

If we make the same sort of assumptions as those in the life insurance
business, and we suppose that the median age for licensees is now over 60
,
then between now and 2020 the number of licensees in the database will
shrink to below 300,000 due to attrition.

But are those assumptions valid? Americans are living longer, having
fewer kids, having them later in life, and the median age of the
population as a whole is rising. IIRC, the median age for the US
population was between 39 and 40 years of age as of the 2000 census,
and had risen almost 5 years between the 1990 and 2000 census-takings.
I wonder what the 2010 census will tell us?

That is assuming we see the same paltry gains in new licensees as is seen
at
the moment. So while there is some reason to be pleased that the numbers
appear to be going up, there remains an inevitable precipice in front of
us.

Maybe. Or maybe the gains will continue. Remember that the license term
has been 10 years for more than a quarter-century now.

As for paltry gains, if my math is right, the past 2-1/2 years have
yielded growth of more than 2.8%. More important, the growth rate seems
to be increasing. Imagine the possibilities when the sunspots come
back...

73 de Jim, N2EY