In article .com, "K4YZ"
writes:

N2EY said:
In Japan, the station license needs to be renewed annually and costs
120 yen, last time I looked. There's an enormous difference between
the
number of JA operator and station licenses as a result.
73 de Jim, N2EY

I'd recheck the math, Jim. 120 yen isn't even $1.00 I doubt that
the Japanese governent is quite that generous!
Perhaps Y120K...?!?!

Could be, Steve, I'm a little rusty on exchange rates.

In any event, while JA operator licenses are free and last longer than the
licensee, station licenses are a yearly renewal. Only an active amateur with
his/her own station bothers with a station license, because one's operator
license allows a JA ham to use someone else's station anyway. And a ham with
only an operator license can always get a new station license (new callsign,
though).

Japan is a very interesting case study in the no-code-test argument. Japan has
had no-code-test ham licenses *with some HF privileges* for several decades
now. This fact is cited as the reason why there were so many hams in Japan
relative to the size of the country. Even though Japan has less than half the
US population, the number of JA hams (station licenses, not just operator
licenses) exceeded the number of US hams more than 30 years ago. Since more
than 90% of JA hams have no-code-test licenses, no-code-test proponents used to
hold up Japan as an example of what the US should do. (Japan used a rather
torturous argument to get around the treaty - their no-code-test ham licenses
are QRP on HF, and Japan is an island, so the claim is that there's no
interference problem.

But since about 1995, JA ham license numbers have been in a downward spiral.
Not just total number of station licenses but number of new licenses, operator
and station. Some say the decline is due to factors like the poor state of the
Japanese economy and/or the popularity of other electronics communications like
the internet, cell phones, etc.

IIRC, Japan still has code-testing for all but the fourth class license, even
though the treaty changed more than 18 months ago.

73 de Jim, N2EY