[RVRC] KB6NU's Column for November 2010

[E Drew Moore]

Is Ham Radio Dying?

By Dan Romanchik, KB6NU

If you’ve been around ham radio for even a year or two, you’ve no doubt heard or participated in the debate as to whether or not ham radio is dying.  The question is as perennial as the grass.

Recently, this was a topic of discussion on the ARRL PR mailing list. Allen, W1AGP, the ARRL’s Media & PR Manager, generated a chart to show that ham radio is NOT dying. It showed the number of licensees in the U.S. every year from 2005 to 2009:

	2005: 661,000
	2006: 655,000
	2007: 655,000
	2008: 662,000
	2009: 681,000
	2010: 694,000!

This chart as drawn a good example of how you can lie with statistics. The y-axis started at 640,000, so the rate of increase in the number of licensees looked quite dramatic. Even so, the good news is that the number of licensees is quickly approaching 700,000, and should surpass that number shortly.

[[ An image of this chart can be found at http://kb6nu.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/chart1.png, if you would like to include it in your newsletter.]]

Upon seeing this chart, Jerry, N9TU, did a little statistical analysis of his own. Of the 83 licensees in his zip code, nine are deceased and one has expired. There are four Novices, 36  Techs, 18 Generals, 5 Advanced and ten Extras.

>From this data, he deduces, “If this is an average sampling of deceased members, expired members and club licenses, there are roughly 90,000 fewer licensees than shown in the data nationwide. I have no clue of the error rate involved with my data. Your results may vary.” My guess is that his zip code is probably pretty typical, and that his analysis is essentially correct.

There’s also the question of activity. It's my guess that nearly half of all licensees are inactive, and that if we could figure out a way to activate those hams, then we’d really be able to say that our hobby is not dying. It’s something worth thinking about, but there’s certainly no easy answer to this problem.  As  Yogi Berra is purported to have said, “If people don’t want to come out to the ball park, there’s nothing you can do to stop them.”

Overall, though, I think the numbers are headed in the right direction. Ham radio is NOT dying. Let’s all keep up the good work.

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When not pondering whether the reports of ham radio's death have been greatly exaggerated or not, Dan operates CW on the HF bands, teaches ham radio classes, and blogs about ham radio at www.kb6nu.com. All comments welcome and appreciated. E-mail them to cwgeek at kb6nu.com.

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