On Apr 8, 10:38�am, N2EY wrote:
Some historic perspective on growth in US Amateur Radio:

Numbers of US population, the number of US hams, growth over the
previous decade and ratio of hams to population at the start of each
decade from 1930. Thanks to W5ESE for the pre-2010 info. (# of hams is
of individuals and does not include grace-period licenses)

Year � Population � � Hams � � Gr
owth � � � Ratio
1930 �123,202,624 � �19,000 � �
� � � � � � � 6,484 to 1
1940 �132,164,569 � �56,000 �+194% ï¿
½ � �2,361 to 1

2000 �281,421,906 �682,240 � �+36% ï¿
½ � � �412 to 1
2010 �309,026,303 �688,326 � � �+
4.5% � � 449 to 1


Note that the decade of greatest percentage growth was the 1930s.

Until 2000, the decade of least percentage growth was the 1960s.

Two things to differ: The USA Census has not yet been formally released
since the US Census Bureau is still requesting all to send in Census
Forms and temporary Census workers are beginning to prepare to get
ready to go to work to interview those who have not sent in forms.

The highest-ever number of USA amateur radio licensees occurred on
midnight of 1 July 2003 at 737,938 total individual licensees.

A minor point to differ about was the scarcity of 'radio parts' for
amateurs building at home and the overall home radio market size not
being anywhere near as big as the consumer electronics market of now. I
am somewhat familiar with the market scene since I was born in 1932.
:-)

K6LHA

In my previous post, I forgot to include the source of the various
numbers not provided by W5ESE.

The current US population came from the "population clock" website:

http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

which is run by the US Census folks. I'm not sure how often it
updates. Last time I looked it was 309,039,794

The license numbers came from the ARRL website, which is the source of
all the ARS license numbers I've posted:

http://www.arrl.org/fcc/stats.html

As of April 9 2010, the number of current unexpired FCC-issued amateur
licenses held by individuals was:

Novice 16,683
Tech 338,087
Tech Plus 15
General 152,796
Advanced 60,367
Extra 120,631

Total 688,579

which works out to about 1 ham for every 449 people in the USA.

73 de Jim, N2EY