In article et, "Bill Sohl"
writes:

Also, take a look at the upcoming expirations in the next
6 months...some pretty hefty numbers of hams with
expirations coming up.

All that means is that the dates when today's hams got their licenses are
not
evenly distributed. Renewal dates are driven by things like rules changes
and vanity gates.

True, but if the non-renewal rate is the same then I predict a total drop of
all hams by something on the order of 10K by year's end.

Perhaps. But where are your numbers, Bill? How many licenses were due to expire
in, say, 2003, vs. how many were renewed? (IOW, what % were renewed?)

I did some quick figuring and found that for 2003, for every 11 license
renewed, 1 was renewed in the grace period.

I expect at least a 10K overall
reduction of licensed hams by end of 2004 based on
SK, lack of interest, etc. based on past renewal rates.

Another WAG, Bill?

SWAG!

How about some numbers to back it up?

Note that even if a license is due to expire in, say, June
2004, there is a 27 month window during which it can be renewed. How do we
capture all of that?

True, but...
Look at Speroni's grace period renewals for the last few
years. No big numbers there.

For every 11 renewals there was 1 in the grace period.

Note also that despite huge numbers of actual expirations there have not been
big decreases in license totals.

Will any of the proposed rules changes make a difference in these trends?

73 de Jim, N2EY