RadioBanter - View Single Post

October 25th 03, 01:29 AM

In article , (Dennis
Ferguson) writes:

N2EY wrote:
"Dee D. Flint" writes:
Eliminating skill and/or knowledge requirements should always be approached
with caution and some degree of trepidation. We sometimes don't know what
we need until we no longer have the ability to use that skill and/or
knowledge. Even when projecting based on past experience, foresight is far
from 20/20.

It's also important to monitor the actual results of changes. For example,
back
in April of 2000, code testing was reduced to a single 5 wpm test *and* the
written tests were reduced. Did we get lots more new hams? Nope - in 3-1/2
years, the ARS in the USA has grown by less than 10,000. What we did get
was
lots of upgrades by already-licensed hams in the year or so following the
rules
changes, then a slowdown to nearly the rates before the changes.

Boy, that's really misleading (though I assume unintentionally). You ask
a rhetorical question about "new hams", but then quote a number (10,000)
which is something else.

I see your point! I should have written that the overall increase is 10,000.

In the 41 months since restructuring, about 70,000 new hams have been
licensed.

Your source for those figures, please?

That's an average of 1670 new hams per month. About 10% of
current ARS licensees obtained their license since the April 2000
restructuring.

Interesting numbers!

For comparison, in the 34 months prior to restructuring about 48,000 new
hams were licensed in the ARS. That's an average of about 1410 new hams
per month.

It seems, then, that the rate at which new hams entered the ARS increased
by about 20% after restructuring, and that this increase was sustained for
at least 39 of those 41 months (the last couple of months are suspicious).

You mean since July? If so, recall that a new Tech Q&A pool was put in place
July 15. The new pool is quite a bit larger than the old one. This dropoff is
significant because the numbers since July are not just down, they're way down
- below what they were before restructuring. Some have suggested that WRC 2003
may be a factor, but that seems unlikely to me because the class most affected
is the Tech, which has no code test anyway.

Is a 20% increase in the number of new hams due to restructuring not "a lot",
and if not then how much would it have had to increase to be "a lot" in
your view?

My math says an 18% increase but close enough. You have a good point, Dennis -
how much of an increase is significant? I'd say that 18% is significant but not
"a lot". 50% increase (average of 2115 per month) I would call "a lot". Just my
opinion.

Note that besides the elimination of the 13 and 20 wpm code tests, the
restructuring significantly reduced the written exams:

Extra went from 5 exams totalling 190 questions to 3 exams totalling 120
questions
General went from 3 exams totalling 100 questions to 2 exams totalling 70
questions
Tech went from 2 exams totalling 65 questions to a single 35 question exam

How much each of these factors affected the number of new hams is anyone's
guess. Personally, I thought that we'd have much more growth in the past 3
years - I even predicted that we'd be over 700,000 before the end of the last
century. Didn't happen!

One more factor: In early 2001, the first of the Technician licenses that did
not require a code test began to reach the end of their terms.

73 de Jim, N2EY