"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