One problem with using "massaged" numbers is that those massagers
seldom show their justification for such massaging. As an example,
the data from www.hamdata.com for January 1, 2005, and January 1,
2004 is given following, as Hamdata totalled it -

In the left blocks, in one year's time, there have been 12,203 license
class changes. Total number of licensed amateurs is not affected
by that. For the same period, there were 17,282 new amateurs, but
19,065 are expired and no longer licensed. As far as the overall
license totals go, that means a 1,783 DROP in numbers. Not a
big thing and might be ascribed to normal attrition rates.

The one thing the regular poster wants to downplay is the number
of Technician Class licensees. Those have been continually growing
and now make up (within 0.02%) two-fifths of all licensees. That
growth rate is, by far, the biggest of all classes, amounting to
nearly 10 thousand a year. So much for the alleged "drop due to
end of grace period." :-) That allegation turned out to be false.

Class totals can be compared from Hamdata numbers based on
January 1 of 2005 growth/decline relative to January 1, 2004:

Technician 289,868 (39.98% of total) (growth of 9,902)
Technician Plus 60,664 ( 8.37% of total) (decline of 9,326)
Novice 35,894 (4.95% of total) (decline of 4,117)
General 146,668 (20.23% of total) (growth of 846)
Advanced 83,424 (11.51% of total) (decline of 1,566)
Extra 108,537 (14.97% of total) (growth of 1,768)

All excepting
club calls 725,055 (decline of
2,493)

Note: Rounding of percentages to one-hundredths decimals
results in 100.01% instead of 100.00%.

All licensees are perfectly legal to continue operating in their grace
period. There is no necessity (nor sense) to eliminate those in the
grace period from those in the normal 10-year license period from
any class totals.

To repeat, the allegation that there is a "big drop" in Technician
Class numbers is WRONG. Raw data doesn't show that. Implying
that the allegation still exists is merely compounding the wrongness.

To paraphrase McLuhan, the medium is the massage.

Someone is kneading to bake bad bread.

.