On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, N2EY wrote:
"Bill Sohl" wrote in message link.net...
The calendar year 2004 has a considerable
amount of expirations...well above a normal
distribution which would have been about 1/10th
of existing hams...or about 63K.

Don't you mean "about 68K", Bill?

More like 73K....

The actual future expiratons data from the Joe
Speroni web site is over 84K expirations
with two months showing very high numbers...
almost 11K in May and over 17K in July.

Didn't FCC change the vanity call rules right about then? If so, it
would explain the spike because getting a vanity call causes an
automatic renewal regardless of the 90 day rule (so FCC doesn't have
to pro-rate the fee, IIUC)

That's going to be the 2006 problem.

Will be interesting to watch the renewal results.

Yep!

Further clouded by the 90 days before/2 years after rules. If someone
is a little late renewing, they show up as an expiration.

What's more interesting is the count of those whose licenses expire WITHOUT them
also having expired (i.e. those who DON'T renew, as opposed to those who can't).

"D. Stussy" wrote in message
. org...
On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, N2EY wrote:
"Bill Sohl" wrote in message
link.net...
The calendar year 2004 has a considerable
amount of expirations...well above a normal
distribution which would have been about 1/10th
of existing hams...or about 63K.

Don't you mean "about 68K", Bill?

More like 73K....

I think Jim has it correct. The existing
ham base is 683K, so an even distribution
of those license renewals over a 10 year
span would net 68K renewals per year...if
they were evenly distributed.

The actual future expiratons data from the Joe
Speroni web site is over 84K expirations
with two months showing very high numbers...
almost 11K in May and over 17K in July.

Didn't FCC change the vanity call rules right about then? If so, it
would explain the spike because getting a vanity call causes an
automatic renewal regardless of the 90 day rule (so FCC doesn't have
to pro-rate the fee, IIUC)

That's going to be the 2006 problem.

Will be interesting to watch the renewal results.

Yep!

Further clouded by the 90 days before/2 years after rules. If someone
is a little late renewing, they show up as an expiration.

What's more interesting is the count of those whose licenses expire
WITHOUT them
also having expired (i.e. those who DON'T renew, as opposed to those who
can't).

How can you tell the difference?

Cheers,
Bill K2UNK

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Bill Sohl wrote:
"D. Stussy" wrote in message
. org...
On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, N2EY wrote:
"Bill Sohl" wrote in message
link.net...
The calendar year 2004 has a considerable
amount of expirations...well above a normal
distribution which would have been about 1/10th
of existing hams...or about 63K.

Don't you mean "about 68K", Bill?

More like 73K....

I think Jim has it correct. The existing
ham base is 683K, so an even distribution
of those license renewals over a 10 year
span would net 68K renewals per year...if
they were evenly distributed.

The actual future expiratons data from the Joe
Speroni web site is over 84K expirations
with two months showing very high numbers...
almost 11K in May and over 17K in July.

Didn't FCC change the vanity call rules right about then? If so, it
would explain the spike because getting a vanity call causes an
automatic renewal regardless of the 90 day rule (so FCC doesn't have
to pro-rate the fee, IIUC)

That's going to be the 2006 problem.

Will be interesting to watch the renewal results.

Yep!

Further clouded by the 90 days before/2 years after rules. If someone
is a little late renewing, they show up as an expiration.

What's more interesting is the count of those whose licenses expire
WITHOUT them
also having expired (i.e. those who DON'T renew, as opposed to those who
can't).

How can you tell the difference?

Compare the licensing database against the "Social Security Death Index" and
look for matches.

Granted, not every death shows up in the SSDI, but nowadays, more than 95% do.

"D. Stussy" wrote in message
. org...
On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, N2EY wrote:
"Bill Sohl" wrote in message
link.net...
The calendar year 2004 has a considerable
amount of expirations...well above a normal
distribution which would have been about 1/10th
of existing hams...or about 63K.

Don't you mean "about 68K", Bill?

More like 73K....

The actual future expiratons data from the Joe
Speroni web site is over 84K expirations
with two months showing very high numbers...
almost 11K in May and over 17K in July.

Didn't FCC change the vanity call rules right about then? If so, it
would explain the spike because getting a vanity call causes an
automatic renewal regardless of the 90 day rule (so FCC doesn't have
to pro-rate the fee, IIUC)

That's going to be the 2006 problem.

Will be interesting to watch the renewal results.

Yep!

Further clouded by the 90 days before/2 years after rules. If someone
is a little late renewing, they show up as an expiration.

What's more interesting is the count of those whose licenses expire
WITHOUT them
also having expired (i.e. those who DON'T renew, as opposed to those who
can't).

Actually if you go to the FCC database and sort for expired licenses, those
that have lapsed but are in the grace period will not show up as expired.
So there is a two year lag between the actual expiration date and when they
are marked as expired in the database.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

In article om, "Dee D.
Flint" writes:

"D. Stussy" wrote in message
.org...
On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, N2EY wrote:
"Bill Sohl" wrote in message
hlink.net...
The calendar year 2004 has a considerable
amount of expirations...well above a normal
distribution which would have been about 1/10th
of existing hams...or about 63K.

Don't you mean "about 68K", Bill?

More like 73K....

The actual future expiratons data from the Joe
Speroni web site is over 84K expirations
with two months showing very high numbers...
almost 11K in May and over 17K in July.

Didn't FCC change the vanity call rules right about then? If so, it
would explain the spike because getting a vanity call causes an
automatic renewal regardless of the 90 day rule (so FCC doesn't have
to pro-rate the fee, IIUC)

That's going to be the 2006 problem.

Will be interesting to watch the renewal results.

Yep!

Further clouded by the 90 days before/2 years after rules. If someone
is a little late renewing, they show up as an expiration.

What's more interesting is the count of those whose licenses expire
WITHOUT them
also having expired (i.e. those who DON'T renew, as opposed to those who
can't).

Actually if you go to the FCC database and sort for expired licenses, those
that have lapsed but are in the grace period will not show up as expired.
So there is a two year lag between the actual expiration date and when they
are marked as expired in the database.

Very true.

The 683K number quoted above does not include grace priod licenses, though,
only active ones. It also does not include club, military and RACES licenses -
only individuals.

This difference sometimes causes confusion because someone will see a number
that reflects the entire database including grace period licenses, and then see
a later number that does not include grace period licenses. If only 5% of hams
don't renew before the end of the grace period, (2-1/2% per year) that works
out to over 34,000.

73 de Jim, N2EY

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003, N2EY wrote:
In article om, "Dee D.
Flint" writes:
"D. Stussy" wrote in message
.org...
On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, N2EY wrote:
"Bill Sohl" wrote in message
hlink.net...
The calendar year 2004 has a considerable
amount of expirations...well above a normal
distribution which would have been about 1/10th
of existing hams...or about 63K.

Don't you mean "about 68K", Bill?

More like 73K....

The actual future expiratons data from the Joe
Speroni web site is over 84K expirations
with two months showing very high numbers...
almost 11K in May and over 17K in July.

Didn't FCC change the vanity call rules right about then? If so, it
would explain the spike because getting a vanity call causes an
automatic renewal regardless of the 90 day rule (so FCC doesn't have
to pro-rate the fee, IIUC)

That's going to be the 2006 problem.

Will be interesting to watch the renewal results.

Yep!

Further clouded by the 90 days before/2 years after rules. If someone
is a little late renewing, they show up as an expiration.

What's more interesting is the count of those whose licenses expire
WITHOUT them
also having expired (i.e. those who DON'T renew, as opposed to those who
can't).

Actually if you go to the FCC database and sort for expired licenses, those
that have lapsed but are in the grace period will not show up as expired.
So there is a two year lag between the actual expiration date and when they
are marked as expired in the database.

Very true.

The 683K number quoted above does not include grace priod licenses, though,
only active ones. It also does not include club, military and RACES licenses -
only individuals.

Perhaps it should. These other license types expire too (and for RACES, they
expire permanently). I saw nothing in the original post that should have
implied to me that these and the grace-period licenses should be excluded from
the count.

This difference sometimes causes confusion because someone will see a number
that reflects the entire database including grace period licenses, and then see
a later number that does not include grace period licenses. If only 5% of hams
don't renew before the end of the grace period, (2-1/2% per year) that works
out to over 34,000.

Substituting "individual" for "license" would at least have excluded some of
those (the CRM's).