On Aug 4, 12:14 am, Jeff Davis wrote:
On 2009-08-03, wrote:

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.

That is true and any evidence is purely anecdotal. But we can make a few
assumptions based on the bubble of the 1950s when the growth of the amate
ur
service was meteoric.

Let's look at the US amateur population over time. The following
numbers have been posted by W5ESE on QRZ.com and elsewhe

Year Population # Hams Hams as % of US Population 1913 97225000
2000 0.002% 1914 99111000 5000 0.005% 1916 101961000 6000 0.006% 1921
108538000 10809 0.010% 1922 110049000 14179 0.013% 1930 123202624 19000
0.015% 1940 132164569 56000 0.042% 1950 151325798 87000 0.057% 1960
179323175 230000 0.128% 1970 203211926 263918 0.130% 1980 226545805
393353 0.174% 1990 248709873 502677 0.202% 1997 267783607 678733 0.253%
2000 281421906 682240 0.242% 2005 296410404 662600 0.224% 2006
299291772 657814 0.220% 2008 303000000 658648 0.217%

Quoting W5ESE: "Many folks consider the 1950's as the "Golden Age of
Amateur Radio", but as you can see, the fractional part of the US
population that was licensed at that time was between 0.057% and
0.128%.

That is much lower than the 0.217% of the US population that are
licensed today."

I agree with W5ESE. Numbers I have gathered from old QSTs and Callbooks
agree with his numbers.

Note how the growth has varied with time, both in percentages and
totals. Oddly enough, the period of most-rapid-growth in terms of
percentage was the 1930s, when the number of US hams almost tripled,
despite the Great Depression.

With the exception of those hams who were licensed as
pre-teens, most of the others would be past retirement age by now.

But there were only 230,000 US hams in 1960. There's been a lot of
growth since then.

The same is now becoming true of those licensed in the 60s so while I hav
e
no evidence or hard data, I think it is safe to say that the majority of
licensed radio amateurs in the US are now over 60 years old.

Well, I must respectfully disagree; we don't really know the median age
of US hams today or in the past. Nor do we really know how it compares
to the median age of the US population.

I'm not arguing with anybody's opinion, I'm just pointing out that the
numbers often tossed around are not derived from hard data.

You are correct that folks are living longer these days and that will no
doubt work in our favor, but it is inevitable that we will begin losing h
ams
in much greater numbers as we approach 2020.

Maybe. I was first licensed in 1967 at the age of 13, and I hope to be
around for quite a while after 2020. Since 1967 I have seen a lot of
people younger than myself become licensed, too.

some League detractors use the old line that the ARRL can only attract 25
%
of licensed hams as an argument for how unpopular Newington is among the
base. I'd argue that it better reflects the actual number of active radio
amateurs since those who are no longer active would not likely maintain
league membership and the most active among us invariably do.

IMHO there are four reasons hams don't join ARRL:

1) They're inactive and don't see the point of getting a mag and
mailings for something they don't do. 2) They don't like the ARRL for
some reason or other. Often it's a single policy issue, or something
done decades ago. 3) They equate ARRL membership with QST, and to them
the mag isn't worth $39 a year. Particularly when there's so much info
on the web now. 4) They have a specific focus in amateur radio (local
comms, QRP, Skywarn, EME, whatever) and ARRL is general-purpose
organization.

I'm all for growth since I think we are in for a big dip in the not too
distant future, but I'm also not certain that there is any historic
correlation between growth in the service and sunspot activity.

It used to be that most new hams started out on the lower HF bands such
as 80 and 40 meters, making regional contacts. 500 to 1000 miles was DX
to a Novice, and staying up late at night to work it was par for the
course.

Nowadays most new hams start out on VHF/UHF with equipment that usually
limits them to relatively local QSOs. Those who venture to HF often
start on the higher bands (10-20 meters) because the antennas are
small, Techs and Novices have voice on 10 meters and that's where the
DX supposedly is. Trouble is, during sunspot minima those bands can be
completely dead. At best they're daylight bands and quite unreliable,
particularly with a basic station.

We probably won't be able to bring new hams onboard at a pace that will
match the attrition of the next decade, but that is no reason not to do a
ll
that we can -- and one thing is to begin thinking about how we are going
to
justify our continued occupation of radio spectrum with a lot fewer licen
sees.

Not to be a Pollyanna, but I've heard basically the same predictions
for 40+ years. For a whole bunch of reasons.

For example, OTs tell me that in the 1950s there were big concerns that
SSB and TVI would kill ham radio. In the 1960s, I recall many saying
that incentive licensing and the counterculture would be the end (how
many hams were there at Woodstock?). In the 1970s it was cb, repeaters
and the demise of many US equipment makers. In the 1980s it was
computers, in the 1990s the internet and cellphones. Etc.

Personally I think the biggest threats today are two:

1) Lack of publicity/visibility 2) Anti-antenna restrictions


As others have stated, I suspect that the most-threatened bands are our
VHF/UHF allocations, because they're relatively wide and most in demand
by other services. As much as we hated to lose 220-222, can we honestly
say that 222-225 became overcrowded because of that reallocation?

I don't think it's the number of licensees as much as the use of bands
that is the big thing. If we don't use a band, what does it matter how
many hams there are?

It's a problem that Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu and the others are no doubt alre
ady
thinking about too...

Maybe. Remember that in the past there were far fewer hams, and yet
there was a wide selection of manufacturers. The actual market for new
ham gear before about the 1970s was very small. This was because the
rigs were very expensive when you adjust for inflation, hams tended to
sell their old gear to other hams in order to buy new, and a lot of
hams converted surplus or built their own. Some years back Electric
Radio published the total number of amateur transmitters, by model and
year, that EF Johnson produced; I was amazed at how small the totals
were, considering how popular the rigs were in the 1950s and 1960s. (I
can post them if anyone's interested).

What has really changed, though, is the distribution of amateurs around
the world. Decades ago, the number of US hams was greater than all the
rest of the world put together. That's not true anymore, even if you
don't count Japan's numerous fourth-class licensees.

Think of what the future could be if and when amateur radio becomes
even moderately popular in countries like China and India.

73 de Jim, N2EY