On Feb 2, 1:07�pm, "Dee Flint" wrote:
"KH6HZ" wrote in message

...

"Dee Flint" wrote:

Market saturation is a fact that all retail manufacturer's face. And they
deal with it.

Yes, with planned obsolescence.

Not exactly the same thing in ham radio, nor can we really deal with it
the same way.

Although our approach will of necessity have to be different, we still must
face the equivalent of market saturation. *

Well, yes and no.

To use the toaster analogy, there's no growth in toaster sales because
almost everyone who wants or needs a toaster already has one or more.
The percentage of Americans who want toasting technology in their
homes is very large, too.

New toaster sales today are almost all either replacements for worn-
out old toasters, or to people setting up a new kitchen.

The key point is that there aren't large numbers of people out there
who don't know about toasters and who will step up and buy one or more
if modern toasting is presented to them in a positive way.

But with amateur radio, I think there are sizable numbers of people
who don't even know amateur radio exists, or who have very distorted
ideas about it. *Those* are the people we need to reach.

Of course many of them won't be interested, no matter what the license
requirements are, because "radio for its own sake" just doesn't
interest as many people as, say, whole wheat toast with butter and
marmalade.

Not everyone is going to be
interested in amateur radio no matter what we do and on top of that our
general population growth is very slow.

I think the population growth is particularly slow in the demographics
that would be most interested in becoming hams, too.

All that means is that we need to get the word out.

*These issues must be considered
when devising a strategy. *Look at how many people believed and still
believe that Morse code kept people out. *They think there is a huge number
of people just waiting in the wings chomping at the bit to become hams
without having to take a code test.

Exactly.

If that were really true, the number of US hams by license class would
be as lopsided as it is in Japan. But it's not.

*I'll certainly be happy and excited if
that happens

Me too!

but let's say it doesn't (and I think it won't). *What then
will people propose?

Reducing the written tests, of course. In fact, that's already been
proposed by NCVEC (see their "Communicator" license idea, and the
paper "Amateur Radio in the 21st Century").

*Will they continue to ignore concepts like market
saturation as one potentially relevant issue? *Will they continue to ignore
the concept that not everyone is interested in the types of things that
amateur radio can do?

We will see in the next few months.

But remember that the resturcturing of 2000 did not result in longterm
growth.

We've probably got another several years until the "cell phone substitute"
hams are, for the most part, gone. *That's several years still of decline.
With the relatively low cost of cell phones these days, we will get no more
recruits from this approach although we have kept a few that came in this
way.

The decline in CB enthusiasts is also reducing another potential source of
recruits.

Yup.

Another factor is that many of the new hams of the 70s-'80s-'90s were
not young people when they started out. More than a few I know were
empty-nesters and retirees - and now they aren't with us anymore.

Also, it should be remembered that back in the supposed "golden age"
of amateur radio - whenever that supposedly was - there were not only
far fewer hams than today, but the number of hams per 1000 people was
far lower. Only in the past few years has the US population grown
faster than the US amateur population.

This actually leads to the major reason for my little guessing game on the
growth of amateur radio without a code test. *If my prediction is wrong and
we have a huge growth, I'll be happy and readily admit that I was wrong. *

Same here. That's one reason I will continue to post the ARS license
numbers here twice a month. That way, anyone can go back through the
archives and see the long-term trends.

If
the growth doesn't happen, perhaps people will wake up and realize that
changing requirements won't address the issue. *Perhaps they will realize
that it is a recruitment and marketing issue rather than requirements.

I agree!

But mark my words: there will be loud cries that the written tests
need to be reduced as well.

73 de Jim, N2EY