KØHB wrote:
wrote

After the incentive licnesing rules went into effect
in the 1967-1969 period, the number of US hams began to
grow much faster than it had during the 1960s. The growth of
the 1970s continued into the 1980s.

Are you suggesting that making it tougher to get full privileges was the cause
that accelerated the growth of the ARS?

No, Hans. Correlation is not causation.

That has to qualify as the most
outrageous notion to hit RRAP (outside the dump huck posts from Mark) in the
current century.

Why? Do you say it's impossible with no evidence?

Look at the facts:

When US hams were allowed back on the air in late 1945, there were
about
60,000 US amateurs. By the time of the 1951 restructuring, the total
had
reached about 90,000 - even though back then the "entry-level" license
was equivalent to what would later be the General.

Of course a good bit of that growth was pent-up demand from the WW2
shutdown, returning servicemen who'd learned radio in the military,
etc.

From the 1951 restructuring to 1964, the number of US hams went from
about 90,000 to about 250,000 - and then the growth stopped dead,
even though incentive licensing would not take effect until several
years
later (1968).

Clearly other "market forces" were in play for the ARS to enjoy the popularity
it did in the post-Sputnik years.

Sputnik went up in 1957 IIRC.

Science was "cool" and the hot ticket for
education and career planning. Scientifiic-seeming hobbies like electronics,
radio, and astronomy were beneficiaries of this attitude.

Sort of. When Sputnik was launched, there was widespread consternation
because the US was perceived to be lagging the USSR in the "space
race".

It did not help that the Soviets kept being the first to do things in
space time
and again for several years in the late 1950s and early 1960s. First
animal
in space - first human in space, first human to orbit, first woman in
space,
first pictures of the far side of the Moon - the list goes on and on.
The USA
was playing catch-up for several years.

Most of all, the post WW2 growth ended *before* incentive licensing.
And the
incentive licensing changes did not make any big changes to the Novice
or
Technician, and did not remove any power, modes or bands from the
General
or Advanced.

If anything,
dis-incentive licensing was a damper (not an accelerant) on the growth ofthe
ARS during that period.

Really? Then *why* did the growth start up again after it was in place,
after almost half a decade of stagnation and even some decline? Why did
the number of US hams grow so fast in the 1970s and 1980s?

If you want to talk about "market forces", consider these:

- The 1960s were a very turbulent time, particularly for young people.
Many were
more interested in political/social causes than in "establishment"
activities like
amateur radio.

- The "space race" and the technological advances it brought made
amateur
radio look a little old-fashioned in some ways. Remember Christmas Eve
1968, when the crew of Apollo 8 showed us the Earth from lunar orbit
via live
TV? How could any terrestrial "DX" compete with that?

- CB radio, established in 1958, became popular in the mid-1960s as
more
and more people found out about it. No test at all, inexpensive,
easy-to-use
equipment, very little effort or skill needed to install or use cb.

- Up until the 1960s, many newcomers were introduced to amateur radio
by
hearing hams using AM voice on the HF ham bands, particularly 75
meters.
There was a natural progression from SWL to ham radio.

But by the early 1960s, the HF ham bands were more full of SSB voice
than
AM. Many SWLs didn't know how to tune in SSB. Many if not most lowcost
SWL-type receivers didn't have BFOs, or the slow tuning rate and
stability
needed to tune in SSB easily.

- Up until 1964 or so, a considerable part of the USA was "Conditional
country" - meaning that a trip to an FCC exam point was not needed for
a lot of potential hams. But around 1964, FCC changed the distance
requirement from 75 to 175 miles, and increased the number of exam
locations so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional country"
anymore.
This meant a lot of hams who wanted Generals or above had to travel
considerable distances to an FCC exam session, rather than going a
few miles to a local ham acting as a volunteer examiner.

If incentive licensing was so awful, why was there so much
growth in the ARS in the two decades after it was put in
place?

Can you imagine how much more growth we'd have had without its repressive
effects on our hobby!

What repressive effects? The Novice and Technician did not really
change under IL,
except that the Novice license term was extended to two years in 1967.
The upgrade
to General was the same. Advanced just required another written test.

And the tests weren't all that hard, really, even back then. I got the
Advanced at age 14,
in the summer between 8th and 9th grades. Extra two years later, and it
only took that long because of the experience requirement. How "hard"
could it have been if even a
self-taught-in-radio kid with no hams in the family could do that?

I remember how much wailing and gnashing of teeth there was back then.
I was
amazed that experienced hams were so intimidated by having to take
another test
or two. And this was in the Philadelphia metro area, where getting to
an FCC exam
session meant a quick subway ride, not a long cross-country journey.

But since about the mid 1980s, we've been told that the requirements
are "too high"
and they keep being lowered. Yet the growth resulting isn't sustained.

Maybe the very people we want to attract are those who want a
challenge.

73 de Jim, N2EY