Steve Bonine writes:

There are not many numeric measures of activity, but one that comes to
mind is the number of people who vote in the election for ARRL Section
Manager. In the following, the number of votes is taken from the ARRL
web site and the number of hams from
http://www.speroni.com/FCC/ARRL/State1A.html

Kentucky, Feb. 2007, 527 votes, 8534 hams, 6% voted.
Texas, Feb. 2007, 1577 votes, 42,949 hams, 4% voted.
New Hampshire, May 2007, 513 votes, 4825 hams, 11% voted.

You can speculate about how much correlation there is between "active
ham" and "voted in ARRL election for SM". I am certainly NOT
suggesting that this is an accurate measure of the activity level of
the ham radio community, but it's an interesting number.

Well, I'm a ARRL member (the majority of US hams are not, and thus
cannot vote for SM), and I get on the air a couple of times a week.
If there were a contested election for SM of my section, I would
probably have no real information on the relative merits of the
candidates, and thus would leave voting to those who do know something
about it.

I consider it my obligation to the polity to inform myself and vote in
all elections for public office in my jurisdiction, but I don't regard
voting in ARRL elections in the same light. "An active ham who is a
member of the League" and "a ham who is an active member of the
League" are far different things.

73 DE KW6H

--
Chris Jewell Gualala CA USA 95445