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K=D8HB wrote: wrote in message oups.com... K=D8HB wrote: The growth in numbers of Amateurs over the past decade has been overwhelmingly via the Technician license. .... since about 1987 or so, most new hams have started out as Technicians. Jim, we can nit-pick the semantics if you really think that's productive, but the two statements above both seem to convey the same notion, which we might more clearly state "Most new hams since 1991 have entered via the Technician class which is now the largest single license class in the US, comprising almost half (47.7%) of the population of licensees in this country, nearly equal to the combined total population of the three higher classes.". I'm not trying to nitpick semantics, Hans, just looking for solid info. I do agree that most new hams since 1991 have entered via the Tech license - in fact, by the mid-80s if not earlier, most new hams I encountered bypassed the Novice and went straight to Tech. The main reason they gave me was 2 meter and 440 repeaters - Techs could use 'em, Novices couldn't. The splitting of the Element 3 written test in 1987 and the dropping of the code test for Tech in 1991 just helped the trend along. AH0A's posted numbers only go back to June 1997, which is of course 8 years rather than a decade, but let's take a look anyway: June 1997 (per AH0A.org): Novice - 66,551 Tech - 174,924 TechPlus - 139,608 Tech/TechPlus combined - 314,532 (46.4%) General - 116,629 Advanced - 107,024 Extra - 73,737 General/Advanced/Extra combined - 297,390 (43.8%) Total all classes: 678,473 April 2005 (per AH0A.org): Novice - 28,615 Tech/TechPlus combined - 318,318 (47.7%) General - 136,808 Advanced - 76,418 Extra - 106,587 General/Advanced/Extra combined - 319,813 (48.0%) Total all classes: 666,746 So in the past 7 years 8 months we've seen growth of 3,786 in the Tech/TechPlus classes, pushing those classes' percentage of US hamdom up 1.3%. But in the same time period we've also seen growth of 22,423 in the General/Advanced/Extra classes, pushing those classes' percentage of US hamdom up 4.2%. So when I read a claim that "The growth in numbers of Amateurs over the past decade has been overwhelmingly via the Technician license.", I would like to see more data. Now it occurs to me that you may have meant that "via the Technician license" means most hams start that way, and I agree. Point is, it seems to me that a lot of new hams don't *stay* Technicians forever. -- I don't think there's ever been a time when ARRL had a majority of US hams as members. The most I ever saw claimed was about one-third, and that was many decades ago. I think the big unknown in all this is the percentage of *active* hams who are members - or even the number of active hams, period. The number of ham radio licenses has always included a certain percentage of SK and totally inactive hams, but with the increase of the license term to 10 years back in 1984 and the general aging of the US population, it's logical to think that the percentage of SK and totally inactive hams has increased dramatically in recent years. From 1994 to 1999, no US ham licenses expired at all. In the bad old days, those who lost interest quickly disappeared from the license totals. Novices had one or two years to upgrade or leave the air, and the other licenses were only good for 5 years. IIRC, it used to be that if you didn't get your Form 610 to FCC before the license expired, it was gone - no grace period. (Of course back then FCC would renew a lot sooner than 90 days before the license expired, upgrades caused automatic renewal and you could combine a renewal and a modification.)=20 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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