My pal and colleague Frank/K4FMH has printed a number of latest articles on tendencies in newbie radio licensing and demographics. This one, The Decline in ARRL Membership and Market Share, has some attention-grabbing knowledge and observations about licensing tendencies within the US. (It additionally feedback on ARRL membership tendencies, however that isn’t the topic of this submit.) This submit focuses on the decline within the variety of FCC newbie radio licensees previously few years. See the chart under.
By License Class
As Frank factors out, breaking this out by license class is illuminating. Unsurprisingly, the Novice and Superior class licensees are experiencing a gradual, regular decline. This in all probability represents the pure decline of a set of licensees when no new licenses are issued. Superior class licensees declined 4.7% per yr from 2019 to 2024. A few of these licensees could also be upgrading to larger class licenses, however anecdotally, I feel this can be a small impact.
Charges and Dabblers
One other issue is that the FCC price applied a $35 software price in April 2022. Nonetheless, this got here after the Technician decline began. Though the $35 price is arguably “cheap,” I anticipate it to lower the variety of licensees.
Many Technicians are solely dabbling in ham radio.
Dabbler: somebody who takes a slight and never very critical curiosity in a topic, or tries a specific exercise for a brief interval.
These Dabblers could get their license in response to household or buddies encouraging them to do it. Or they might have a piece connection akin to being a firefighter, regulation enforcement officer, or emergency medical technician. Or possibly they have been curious in regards to the pastime, however it didn’t fairly take maintain. Once they get to the purpose of renewing their license, many Dabblers will seemingly determine to not spend the $35. One may argue that the Dabblers will not be engaged within the newbie radio service so having them drop out could also be simply nice. Regardless of the cause, the result’s fewer licensees.
Frank factors out that the Normal and Additional Class numbers are rising, reflecting more healthy exercise in these license lessons. Nonetheless, the slope of these curves is fairly flat, and the Normal class declined barely through the previous yr. From December 2019 to December 2024, the Normal class numbers elevated by 3% and the Additional class by 4%. US inhabitants development was about 3% throughout this time, so these two license lessons are simply maintaining with inhabitants development. I’d argue there are fewer Dabblers within the Normal and Additional ranks as they’ve demonstrated sufficient curiosity and dedication to the pastime that they went to the difficulty of incomes a higher-level license. Accordingly, the $35 FCC price would have much less impact on these two license lessons. (I don’t have knowledge to assist this, so it’s simply my very own little speculation.)
Again in 2018, I made some comparisons between ham radio and different actions. These ratios have in all probability not modified a lot in 7 years.
In 2018, the variety of newbie radio licenses within the FCC database was about 0.2% of the US inhabitants, which stays about the identical at present. After all, not all these licensees are lively, so this overstates ham radio exercise. Birdwatching got here in at 3% of the inhabitants, so it’s 10 occasions extra in style than ham radio.
Conclusions
Technician decline is actual and needs to be a trigger for concern. I don’t suppose we must always panic but when this development continues, the ham radio inhabitants will wither away. I discussed the possible affect from COVID-19, which needs to be a transient occasion that has now handed. The affect of the FCC license software price (if any) may very well be long-lasting.
It’s well-known that the radio newbie inhabitants is skewed in direction of older people…largely older males. Ageing does trigger folks to go away the pastime over time, both by dying or by lowered bodily and psychological potential. That is in all probability a part of the image, however why would it not solely have an effect on the Technician numbers?
What do you suppose?
73 Bob K0NR
