N2EY wrote:

In article , Mike Coslo

Then ya got NCVEC talking about a whole series of petitions if/when the code
test goes, which to me sounds like doubling the hill.*

You watch, Mike - if/when the code test is dropped, we'll have a surge of
upgrades and new hams for a while - then things will settle back to about where
they were before restructuring.

73 de Jim, N2EY

* special bonus trivia section - how did the phrases "hanging fire" and
"doubling the hill" originate?

I don't have a clue here!

- Mike KB3EIA -

"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article , "Dee D.
Flint"
writes:

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".

Is this really the case? I thought an upgrade is considered a
modification.
It's my understanding that an upgrade does not extend the license term,
but a
vanity call does (to avoid having to prorate the vanity fee).


I'm talking about when they actually change call signs, the old call sign is
marked as terminated. The person's license is modified with the new call
sign but that is listed as a new grant date. I believe an upgrade does
extend the license but a change of address does not.

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.

Interesting stuff, Dee! I wonder how much of this was done by the "97%"
folks.

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.

In those three license classes, anyway. But this info raises a question:
If
your method only counts licenses which have reached the end of the grace
period
without a renewal, then the expirations listed above are those for
licenses
issued or renewed during the period 10/18/1998 to 10/18/1999. But that
time
period is before the Tech/Tech Plus split!


I was indeed focusing on the various entry level licenses as the debate has
been over how many people stuck with it. These figures would be for licenses
issued between 10/18/1990 and 10/18/1991. Their grace period expired
10/18/2003 and that is when they show up in the database as expired. That
is to say the expiration date listed in the database is 10 years from the
grant date although it won't show as expired in the database until the two
year grace period has elapsed. For example, if I enter an expired date
range covering the past year, it shows NO expired licenses. That's because
they are still in the grace period and will not be listed as such until that
grace period is up. I hope I've explained it clearly. If not let me know
and I will try again.


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).

I think FCC makes that info available another way, because the AH0A site
carries a "new license" category. But it's based on current data, not
historic
stuff.

Perhaps the best indicator is to watch how the total number of each
license
class, and the combined Tech/Techplus total, rise and fall. For instance,
notice how slowly (percentagewise) the number of Advanceds is dropping,
compared to how fast the number of Novices is dropping. The number of
Tech
Pluses is dropping fast too, but that's aided by the fact that FCC is
renewing
all Tech Pluses as Techs.


That's why we should consider the Tech/Tech+ as a single group for the
purposes whether a class is growing or shrinking.

I would suspect that the number of Advanced licenses drop more slowly than
the Novice for several reasons. The percentage of Advanced licensees who
are active is likely to be higher than the percentage of Novices. The
Advanced licensee is probably more apt to renew, as he/she has a lot more
effort invested. And the Advanced licensee often has little reason to
upgrade as they have almost as much spectrum as the Extras. All the upgrade
would get them would be a minimal increase in band space and the privilege
of being eligible to administer Extra class upgrade exams. If they are not
interested in spectrum space or giving Extra exams, that only leaves the
"prestige" of being able to say they are an Extra. For many that's an
insufficient reason to upgrade. It would not surprise me if the drop in
Advanced licensees is due in a significant part to some of them becoming
silent keys. However, there really isn't any way to determine that.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message
.com...

"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article , "Dee D.
Flint"
writes:

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".

Is this really the case? I thought an upgrade is considered a
modification.
It's my understanding that an upgrade does not extend the license term,
but a
vanity call does (to avoid having to prorate the vanity fee).


I'm talking about when they actually change call signs, the old call sign
is
marked as terminated. The person's license is modified with the new call
sign but that is listed as a new grant date. I believe an upgrade does
extend the license but a change of address does not.

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.

Interesting stuff, Dee! I wonder how much of this was done by the "97%"
folks.

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.

In those three license classes, anyway. But this info raises a question:
If
your method only counts licenses which have reached the end of the grace
period
without a renewal, then the expirations listed above are those for
licenses
issued or renewed during the period 10/18/1998 to 10/18/1999. But that
time
period is before the Tech/Tech Plus split!


I was indeed focusing on the various entry level licenses as the debate
has
been over how many people stuck with it. These figures would be for
licenses
issued between 10/18/1990 and 10/18/1991. Their grace period expired
10/18/2003 and that is when they show up in the database as expired. That
is to say the expiration date listed in the database is 10 years from the
grant date although it won't show as expired in the database until the two
year grace period has elapsed. For example, if I enter an expired date
range covering the past year, it shows NO expired licenses. That's
because
they are still in the grace period and will not be listed as such until
that
grace period is up. I hope I've explained it clearly. If not let me know
and I will try again.



Just for kicks, I went back and looked up the number of expirations for the
other classes for the same time period (10/18/2000 through 10/18/2001).

General - 1654 expirations
Advanced - 902 expirations
Extra - 493 expirations.

Total = 3049 expirations

Based on other postings in this thread, the number of licensees holding
Novice/Tech/Tech+ licensees in May of 2000 was 383,583. Those holding
General/Advanced/Extra class licenses numbered 291,209. While I should go
back and make my time period start with May 2000 to be really comparable,
I'm just going to use the figures that I have for the next calculation as it
shouldn't make a whole lot of difference. The percentage of
Novice/Tech/Tech+ licenses that expired was approximately 3.4% in that one
year time period. The percentage of General/Advanced/Extra licenses that
expired was approximately 1.0% in that same time frame.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

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

As usual, Brian opens mouth, and inserts foot.
If you are trying to infer that Bruce, WA8ULX, is not able to put up a
antenna for HF, you are wrong.

I talked to him on 14.275 a month ago.

Get over it.

Dan/W4NTI

Dan, it has nothing to do with Bruce's antenna. It has everything to
do with your attitude, which could have easily come straight out of
Bruce's mouth.

Two (2) peas in a pod. You're just almost as vulgar as Bruce, the
only real difference.

Don't get over it, fix it.

You're just almost as vulgar as Bruce, the
only real difference.

VULGAR, you havent seen VULGAR yet

I guess you've got four (4) hands between the both (2) of you.

Go for it you sickos.


Dan do you think Brian is ALOT LITE in his shoes?

Jim,

I think I have the answers to your bonus quiz:

Hanging Fire (or Hang Fire) - an old military term used when a black
powder artillery piece did not immediately fire when the priming
charge was lit (could be a few seconds delay before the main charge
was ignited). Still used in this context whenever modern ammunition
misfires.

Doubling The Hill - this one is probably an old railroad term for the
practice of seperating train cars and taking them up a steep hill in
two runs, back when steam locomotives were common. Insufficient power
to pull the entire train up the hill in one run would have
necessitated this practice.

73, Leo

On 19 Oct 2003 18:28:53 GMT, (N2EY) wrote:

* special bonus trivia section - how did the phrases "hanging fire" and
"doubling the hill" originate?

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

As usual, Brian opens mouth, and inserts foot.
If you are trying to infer that Bruce, WA8ULX, is not able to put up a
antenna for HF, you are wrong.

I talked to him on 14.275 a month ago.

Get over it.

Dan/W4NTI

Dan, it has nothing to do with Bruce's antenna. It has everything to
do with your attitude, which could have easily come straight out of
Bruce's mouth.

Two (2) peas in a pod. You're just almost as vulgar as Bruce, the
only real difference.

Don't get over it, fix it.

What makes you think I care what you want, or like, or not like, or not want
? And who appointed you usenet god anyway? Not to mention that to tell
someone who they can talk with is beyond reason.

Let me sum it up for you Brian...

If you don't like what I say, I do, I think, or who I talk with.....get over
it.

Dan/W4NTI

"WA8ULX" wrote in message
...
I guess you've got four (4) hands between the both (2) of you.

Go for it you sickos.


Dan do you think Brian is ALOT LITE in his shoes?

He does keep bringing it up, doesn't he?

Dan/W4NTI