In article , N2EY
wrote:

These are the number of unexpired FCC ARS
licenses held by individuals on the dates listed:

As of May 14, 2000:

Novice - 49,329
Tech - 205,394
Tech Plus - 128,860
General - 112,677
Advanced - 99,782
Extra - 78,750
Total - 674,792


As of October 15, 2003:

Novice - 32,977 (decrease of 16,352)
Technician - 257,303 (increase of 51,909)
Technician Plus - 64,686 (decrease of 64,174)
General - 141,313 (increase of 28,636)
Advanced - 82,589 (decrease of 17,193)
Extra - 104,670 (increase of 25,920)
Total - 683,538 (increase of 8,746)

73 de Jim, N2EY

Jim,

It looks like we are on the road to some deflation in the numbers.
AE4FA has posted numbers gleaned from his research into the FCC
database concerning renewals of the Technician class (no code variety)
and has found that almost 97% of them are not renewing. There is only
a small data window to draw from however, as the first people who held
this license class are only starting to reach the end of the grace
periods. He had a way to filter out licensees who had upgraded. I think
there was 8 months of data when the finding were posted. This could be
why we are about 4,000 licensees down from the peak you mentioned.

73
George
K3UD

--
remove NOSPAM from address

"GMC" wrote in message
...
In article , N2EY
wrote:

These are the number of unexpired FCC ARS
licenses held by individuals on the dates listed:

As of May 14, 2000:

Novice - 49,329
Tech - 205,394
Tech Plus - 128,860
General - 112,677
Advanced - 99,782
Extra - 78,750
Total - 674,792


As of October 15, 2003:

Novice - 32,977 (decrease of 16,352)
Technician - 257,303 (increase of 51,909)
Technician Plus - 64,686 (decrease of 64,174)
General - 141,313 (increase of 28,636)
Advanced - 82,589 (decrease of 17,193)
Extra - 104,670 (increase of 25,920)
Total - 683,538 (increase of 8,746)

73 de Jim, N2EY

Jim,

It looks like we are on the road to some deflation in the numbers.
AE4FA has posted numbers gleaned from his research into the FCC
database concerning renewals of the Technician class (no code variety)
and has found that almost 97% of them are not renewing. There is only
a small data window to draw from however, as the first people who held
this license class are only starting to reach the end of the grace
periods. He had a way to filter out licensees who had upgraded. I think
there was 8 months of data when the finding were posted. This could be
why we are about 4,000 licensees down from the peak you mentioned.

73
George
K3UD

--
remove NOSPAM from address

Not a surprise really. All this happened before the cellphone craze got
going. Why bother with a license, especially when they really didn't care
for ham radio, when all they wanted to do was order a pizza and check up on
the wife/husband.

Dan/W4NTI

"Dan/W4NTI" w4nti@get rid of this mindspring.com wrote in message link.net...
"Brian" wrote in message
m...
"Dan/W4NTI" w4nti@get rid of this mindspring.com wrote in message
ink.net...

How Come with all these 'new' Ektra class tickets they STILL ain't
covering
the HF bands?

Perhaps they can't figure out how to cut that dipole, eh?

Dan/W4NTI

So you're saying that HF HASN'T been ruined by hordes of unwashed CBers?

No, Brian....I'm saying that they are too ignorant to get a signal on HF.

Dan/W4NTI

Bruce, thanks.

Brian

Dan/W4NTI wrote:

"GMC" wrote in message
...

In article , N2EY
wrote:


These are the number of unexpired FCC ARS
licenses held by individuals on the dates listed:

As of May 14, 2000:

Novice - 49,329
Tech - 205,394
Tech Plus - 128,860
General - 112,677
Advanced - 99,782
Extra - 78,750
Total - 674,792


As of October 15, 2003:

Novice - 32,977 (decrease of 16,352)
Technician - 257,303 (increase of 51,909)
Technician Plus - 64,686 (decrease of 64,174)
General - 141,313 (increase of 28,636)
Advanced - 82,589 (decrease of 17,193)
Extra - 104,670 (increase of 25,920)
Total - 683,538 (increase of 8,746)

73 de Jim, N2EY

Jim,

It looks like we are on the road to some deflation in the numbers.
AE4FA has posted numbers gleaned from his research into the FCC
database concerning renewals of the Technician class (no code variety)
and has found that almost 97% of them are not renewing. There is only
a small data window to draw from however, as the first people who held
this license class are only starting to reach the end of the grace
periods. He had a way to filter out licensees who had upgraded. I think
there was 8 months of data when the finding were posted. This could be
why we are about 4,000 licensees down from the peak you mentioned.

73
George
K3UD

--
remove NOSPAM from address


Not a surprise really. All this happened before the cellphone craze got
going. Why bother with a license, especially when they really didn't care
for ham radio, when all they wanted to do was order a pizza and check up on
the wife/husband.

If this really is the case, then what happened to the technically
astute technicians who just refused on principle to learn Morse code?
Are they the remaining 3 percent?

Could be a No-code myth here?

- Mike KB3EIA -

If this really is the case, then what happened to the technically
astute technicians who just refused on principle to learn Morse code?
Are they the remaining 3 percent?

Could be a No-code myth here?

- Mike KB3EIA -

Its always been a myth by the No-Code Crowd.

In article , GMC writes:

It looks like we are on the road to some deflation in the numbers.

Perhaps. There are lots of factors influencing the numbers right now. For
example, a new Tech Q&A pool was put in place July 15, and since then the
number of new Techs has plummeted.

AE4FA has posted numbers gleaned from his research into the FCC
database concerning renewals of the Technician class (no code variety)
and has found that almost 97% of them are not renewing.

I question his methods.

There is only
a small data window to draw from however, as the first people who held
this license class are only starting to reach the end of the grace
periods. He had a way to filter out licensees who had upgraded.

Before I'd accept such a low renewal rate, I'd like to see how the data was
processed. There are all sorts of procedural pitfalls in trying to figure out
renewal rates. For example, people change their names and addresses frequently,
making tracking difficult. The 1994 changes to the vanity callsign rules
resulted in a lot of Techs getting vanity calls - which carry with them a
renewal.

I think
there was 8 months of data when the finding were posted.

And how many were issued in that time?

This could be
why we are about 4,000 licensees down from the peak you mentioned.

Perhaps. OTOH, look at how many Techs are renewed in a given year, then figure
what 10% of the current Tech-Tech Plus population is. You'll get a much higher
renewal rate than 3%

73 de Jim, N2EY

"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
. net...
Dan/W4NTI wrote:

"GMC" wrote in message
...

In article , N2EY
wrote:


These are the number of unexpired FCC ARS
licenses held by individuals on the dates listed:

As of May 14, 2000:

Novice - 49,329
Tech - 205,394
Tech Plus - 128,860
General - 112,677
Advanced - 99,782
Extra - 78,750
Total - 674,792


As of October 15, 2003:

Novice - 32,977 (decrease of 16,352)
Technician - 257,303 (increase of 51,909)
Technician Plus - 64,686 (decrease of 64,174)
General - 141,313 (increase of 28,636)
Advanced - 82,589 (decrease of 17,193)
Extra - 104,670 (increase of 25,920)
Total - 683,538 (increase of 8,746)

73 de Jim, N2EY

Jim,

It looks like we are on the road to some deflation in the numbers.
AE4FA has posted numbers gleaned from his research into the FCC
database concerning renewals of the Technician class (no code variety)
and has found that almost 97% of them are not renewing. There is only
a small data window to draw from however, as the first people who held
this license class are only starting to reach the end of the grace
periods. He had a way to filter out licensees who had upgraded. I think
there was 8 months of data when the finding were posted. This could be
why we are about 4,000 licensees down from the peak you mentioned.

73
George
K3UD

--
remove NOSPAM from address


Not a surprise really. All this happened before the cellphone craze got
going. Why bother with a license, especially when they really didn't
care
for ham radio, when all they wanted to do was order a pizza and check up
on
the wife/husband.

If this really is the case, then what happened to the technically
astute technicians who just refused on principle to learn Morse code?
Are they the remaining 3 percent?

Could be a No-code myth here?

- Mike KB3EIA -


Of course.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article , GMC
writes:

It looks like we are on the road to some deflation in the numbers.

Perhaps. There are lots of factors influencing the numbers right now. For
example, a new Tech Q&A pool was put in place July 15, and since then the
number of new Techs has plummeted.

AE4FA has posted numbers gleaned from his research into the FCC
database concerning renewals of the Technician class (no code variety)
and has found that almost 97% of them are not renewing.

I question his methods.

There is only
a small data window to draw from however, as the first people who held
this license class are only starting to reach the end of the grace
periods. He had a way to filter out licensees who had upgraded.

Before I'd accept such a low renewal rate, I'd like to see how the data
was
processed. There are all sorts of procedural pitfalls in trying to figure
out
renewal rates. For example, people change their names and addresses
frequently,
making tracking difficult. The 1994 changes to the vanity callsign rules
resulted in a lot of Techs getting vanity calls - which carry with them a
renewal.


I did some exploring around in the FCC database and it appears that there is
a way to determine these things. When a person changes call signs or
upgrades and so on, the old one is marked as "terminated" not "expired".
The term "expired" appears to be used only when a person has neither renewed
nor upgraded. This is based on checking the call signs of persons that I
know upgraded. Changing a name or address does not result in either an
"expired" or "terminated" on the call sign. So if one uses the the feature
so search on the Amateur Radio Service rather than the basic search and
types in dates and checks "expired" and specifies the license class, you
should get those and only those that were not renewed. The numbers are
indeed rather large. Note however, it isn't marked as "expired" until the
two year grace period has elapsed from what I can determine by exploring the
data base.

So using the time period 10/18/2000 through 10/18/2001, here are the number
of expired licenses that pop up.

Novice - 5645 expired in that one year time frame
Tech - 3811 expirations
Tech+ - 3687 expirations

This is a total loss of 13,143 of licensees in the year from 10/18/2000 to
10/18/2001.

On the other hand it does not appear possible to determine the actual number
of truly new licenses from the data base as far as I can tell at this time.
You can select "Grant date" but that gives you all newly issued licenses and
updated licenses (i.e. renewals, adress changes, etc).

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

N2EY wrote:
In article , GMC writes:


It looks like we are on the road to some deflation in the numbers.


Perhaps. There are lots of factors influencing the numbers right now. For
example, a new Tech Q&A pool was put in place July 15, and since then the
number of new Techs has plummeted.

I might have posted this before, but if I was a prospective ham at this
juncture, I would probably wait and go for the biggist bang for the buck
- that is to wait and just go for the General ticket after the Morse
code test is gone.

Then again, maybe I wouldn't myself, because I personally think its
going to be four years til things get wrapped up in this area (dropping
the CW test). But others think it will only be a few months.

And that is my take on the drop.

Similar situation is my son bought a copy of Finale software. He was
surprised that it offered a free upgrade to the new version, which is
due out in a few months. I asked him if he knew that there was a new
version out in two month, would he have bought this one? Of course the
answer was no for such expensive software. He would have waited, and
Finale's producers would be in a real sales doldrum right now - no one
would be buying.


- Mike KB3EIA -

What's a myth, your stupidity?

The correct definition for Studity is.

No-Code CBplussers.