"Bob Brock" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 2 Feb 2007 08:21:20 -0500, "Dee Flint"
wrote:


[snip]

Market saturation is a fact that all retail manufacturer's face. And they
deal with it. This applies to everything from toasters to cars to TV
programming to any hobby you can name. For example, there's no growth in
the US toaster market. Each manufacturer works on keeping their market
share or growing their share. Similarly, we will have to show why our
activity deserves more of a person's free time than other activities.

If the market is saturated at current levels, then we should face the
fact that ham radio is obsolete and as quaint as horse buggies. I'm
only using the manufacturing analogy because you did. Personally, I
see ham radio as a service and not a product. I see a lot of
households who don't have one and they don't have one because they
don't see a need for it that can't be met someway else.


Saturation does not equate to being obsolete. The market (toasters, TVs,
etc) for almost all current consumer goods has been saturated for decades.
The consumer buys for one of three reasons: 1) A person setting up their
own household for the first time; 2) The old one broke; 3) They just want a
new one.

The toaster market (a saturated market) stays pretty steady year after year
for the three reason listed. It does not grow (at least here in the US).

What I am saying with the marketing analogy is that there is an inherent
limit on the percentage of people that will be interested in ham radio. We
are probably close to that limit. Yes we can and will find prospective hams
by active recruiting. However, given it's limited appeal, finding those
people will merely enable us to maintain stability.

Actually, looking at other countries with well off populations, I would
suspect that we may drop from our current approximately 2 hams per thousand
people down to more like 1 ham per thousand people before we finally
stabilize. And we'll have to recruit diligently to stabilize even there.

Dee, N8UZE