Speaker 1: Has HAM radio become outdated? Is HAM radio outdated? And
Speaker 1: what do the numbers say about the quantities of people
Speaker 1: getting licensed and retaining their license over the last fifteen
Speaker 1: or so years. Let's check this out. I got this
Speaker 1: article from Reddit because I was browsing around for some
Speaker 1: different stories and topics or follow ups on the FCC.
Speaker 1: Delete delete, delete the deregulation video that I made a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago that talks about some verbiage changes
Speaker 1: to FCC policies for part ninety five, Part ninety seven,
Speaker 1: Part ninety But I ran across this article on Reddit
Speaker 1: and it caught my eye. Now, the FCC deregulation and
Speaker 1: it comes from this is a Reddit post obviously, and
Speaker 1: this is in the GMRS channel, and he's linking an
Speaker 1: article from the Hill dot com. Okay, with the FCC
Speaker 1: looking for input deregulation of quote anything. How would this
Speaker 1: pertain to the future of handheld portable FM, HFUHF, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Will GMRS have a regulated future? Will HAM not require
Speaker 1: licensed thoughts? And there's some thoughts on this. And I'm
Speaker 1: not going to read hardly any of this to you guys,
Speaker 1: because it was this last comment that caught my eye.
Speaker 1: So this last comment right here was from a user.
Speaker 1: Now that this whole article is eight months old, and
Speaker 1: all of these comments are eight months old at the
Speaker 1: time of this recording. Okay, but this is still pertinent
Speaker 1: information because of the FCCD regulation blah blah blah, Department
Speaker 1: of Government Efficiency and all that kind of jazz going on.
Speaker 1: Right now, Okay, Ham Radio. This line right here, this
Speaker 1: is from this guy named Texas Weed. Now I'm embarrassed
Speaker 1: that this guy's in Texas, quite frankly, and he's obviously
Speaker 1: smoking some weed. Okay, so let's just read his statement here.
Speaker 1: Ham Radio has become outdated. One significant drawback is a
Speaker 1: lack of diversity among its participants, particularly regarding age and gender.
Speaker 1: First of all, that's not completely true. Second of all,
Speaker 1: I don't see that as a drawback. If HAM Radio
Speaker 1: was alive and well in the female community more so
Speaker 1: than the male community, and it was growing in numbers,
Speaker 1: as I'm going to demonstrate to you here in a second,
Speaker 1: I still wouldn't see that as a drawback. So I
Speaker 1: don't really agree with his statement there, But let's move on. Okay.
Speaker 1: He says, if you attend to Hamfest. You'll notice the
Speaker 1: majority of attendees are older, white men, with very few
Speaker 1: people of color present. Okay, Again, the numbers might say that,
Speaker 1: but I don't see how that's a drawback. Okay. And again,
Speaker 1: everyone is welcome in Ham Radio, and I think we've
Speaker 1: demonstrated that in numerous videos and numerous of my live
Speaker 1: streams in my happy hours. You need to check out
Speaker 1: a Bill Ham Radio tectonics, and you need to check
Speaker 1: out l from She's on frequency. Check some of those
Speaker 1: channels out and see. And yeah, there's a lot more
Speaker 1: white men making videos today than there are others. But
Speaker 1: anyone can do it. You are welcome to do it.
Speaker 1: Starts your own channel. This is the part right here
Speaker 1: that he's most wrong about. This is basically conjecture. This
Speaker 1: is his opinion. He has the right to his opinion,
Speaker 1: just like everyone else does. I don't agree with his opinion,
Speaker 1: but he has the right to it. Okay. The second
Speaker 1: instance here is really kind of what we want to
Speaker 1: focus on anyways. Nowadays, a testing process for a teena
Speaker 1: HAM radio license has become overly simplified. It often feels
Speaker 1: like mere formality involving signing your name and paying a
Speaker 1: thirty five dollars fee. A lot of people want that
Speaker 1: that's not what you do. You actually have to know
Speaker 1: some information to get ham radio license. And I agree
Speaker 1: with and respect the fact that people take the time
Speaker 1: to go get their hand radio license and study and
Speaker 1: take a course. Okay, I respect that, and I think
Speaker 1: that's something we should keep in place. Okay, otherwise it'll
Speaker 1: just become like CB radio. And a lot of people
Speaker 1: will say GMRS radio is already becoming that way. Because
Speaker 1: you just signed your name and buy a license. Anyone
Speaker 1: can easily pass the test. Since the question answer pool
Speaker 1: is available for free online. That's been true for about
Speaker 1: five decades, maybe longer. So this is like, so what,
Speaker 1: you still have to know the material. It's not an
Speaker 1: open book test. They're not going to spoon feed you
Speaker 1: the answers during the test. You still got to know
Speaker 1: the material. It's a four hundred question pool of questions
Speaker 1: with thirty five test questions for both the technician and
Speaker 1: the general test, and then the extra pool is uh,
Speaker 1: it's either five or I think it's six hundred questions.
Speaker 1: It might be more than that now. They've changed it
Speaker 1: a few times recently. Six hundred or so questions in
Speaker 1: the extra test question pool and fifty questions on that test,
Speaker 1: So you still have to know this material to pass
Speaker 1: the test. You can't just look it up or use
Speaker 1: your or google it during your test. You have to
Speaker 1: learn and know the material because you don't know which
Speaker 1: thirty five questions or which fifty questions are going to
Speaker 1: be on your test. You can simply download this information
Speaker 1: and take the test without any real education, knowledge or skill.
Speaker 1: Despite making it easy, the numbers continued to dwindle. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I will agree that the test is easier than
Speaker 1: it was ten years ago, twenty years ago, something like that.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and six is when they removed the
Speaker 1: Morse Code requirements. So it used to be used to
Speaker 1: be a long time ago. You had Novice, General, Advanced,
Speaker 1: and Extra. There might have been a technician in there
Speaker 1: as well, okay, But then they came out with the
Speaker 1: Technician no code. The Novice, the General, they Advanced, the
Speaker 1: Extra all required Morse Code and the difference was you
Speaker 1: had to do more words per minute as you upgraded
Speaker 1: your license. Okay, And then they came out with a
Speaker 1: Technician no Code, which was the first ever test and
Speaker 1: I think it was around nineteen ninety one or two.
Speaker 1: That's the first license I got, which in nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: and they also had a Technician plus which was a
Speaker 1: few more questions, but also Morse code. And then eventually
Speaker 1: they got rid of all of that and they had
Speaker 1: Technician only, General only, and Extra only and it was
Speaker 1: all questions, no Morse code. And this happened in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, and since then the numbers have pretty
Speaker 1: much with the exception of some COVID fluctuation, the numbers
Speaker 1: have been pretty much growing since then. And I'm going
Speaker 1: to show you the graph that I found. I did
Speaker 1: some digging today and I found some graph and some
Speaker 1: numbers for people who the total number of licensed people
Speaker 1: and the total number of new licenses that we've seen
Speaker 1: since about two thousand and seven. First, let me tell
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Speaker 1: this guy's basically just he's either trolling or he's got
Speaker 1: to stick up his butt about something. Okay, He's conjecturing
Speaker 1: a lot of opinions, misplaced opinions, misplaced guidance, and fake facts,
Speaker 1: fake news as it were. And this is what someone
Speaker 1: who has this mindset. It's not I'm not going to
Speaker 1: start talking politically or anything. But so I did a
Speaker 1: little bit of digging, and I incorporated some websites, and
Speaker 1: I put some stuff together, and I did a analysis
Speaker 1: of the number of new Ham Radio licenses and total
Speaker 1: number of Ham Radio licenses since two thousand and six
Speaker 1: or seven or some of that information wasn't available, I
Speaker 1: should say, Okay, based on data from the AWL annual reports,
Speaker 1: news releases, and FCC statistics compiled by amateur radio clubs.
Speaker 1: Here's a summary of the number of new ham radio
Speaker 1: licenses issued each year. Note that the exact figures for
Speaker 1: two thousand and six and seven were not available located
Speaker 1: in available resources. The Morse code requirement was eliminated in
Speaker 1: early two thousand and seven, and I actually think of
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, I think the AI got this
Speaker 1: part wrong, but leading to a surge starting that year. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's been talked about in numerous videos since then.
Speaker 1: The data shows a steady growth post two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: peaking around twenty fourteen, possibly influenced by COVID et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So here's what we see. So in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, the number of new licenses in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight was twenty eight thousand, sixty six, just
Speaker 1: over thirty thousand, two thousand and nine, twenty seven thousand,
Speaker 1: twenty four thousand, twenty seven. It kind of peaks right
Speaker 1: here around two thousand and fourteen, with thirty three thousand,
Speaker 1: two hundred and forty one that year, and then it
Speaker 1: kind of remains pretty steady until twenty twenty, and it
Speaker 1: actually dropped in twenty twenty to twenty nine thousand, and
Speaker 1: then we got a surge in twenty twenty one because
Speaker 1: everyone a lot of the lockdowns started in like early
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and a lot of people were at home
Speaker 1: watching YouTube. I got a surge on this channel watching
Speaker 1: my channel watchers in YouTube, and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of people asking about ham Radio licensing and hammereto testing.
Speaker 1: So you can see right here at this graph which
Speaker 1: all these numbers right here in this list have been
Speaker 1: compiled into this graph right here, and you can see
Speaker 1: right there that the numbers kind of dipped a round
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, then they got a shot in the arm
Speaker 1: around twenty twenty one, and then for whatever reason, they
Speaker 1: kind of dip down in twenty twenty two and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, probably because those numbers would have been a
Speaker 1: little bit more average if we didn't have such a
Speaker 1: peak in twenty twenty one, Okay, And then you can
Speaker 1: see for twenty twenty four they came way back up.
Speaker 1: Over thirty thousand people got a new license in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. This is new hamm radio license issued per
Speaker 1: year from twenty eight to twenty twenty four. Okay, I
Speaker 1: think that's a respectable graph right there. I would like
Speaker 1: to see it go up a little bit more like this.
Speaker 1: And I wonder if twenty twenty five is going to
Speaker 1: be higher than this, since it did such a jump
Speaker 1: from around twenty four thousand and nine to around thirty
Speaker 1: thousand and six, from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Why are we seeing that. It's possible we're seeing that
Speaker 1: simply because of events like Hurricane Helen and Hurricane Harvey
Speaker 1: here in Texas a couple of years ago, and places
Speaker 1: overseas that are employing the help of hand radio operators
Speaker 1: for earthquakes and tsunamis. I've been reading some stories about
Speaker 1: that lately. It's very possible that we've been seeing that
Speaker 1: type of thing. People are starting to take notice and
Speaker 1: recognize like they have in the past. People recognize this,
Speaker 1: and they kind of let it drop off for a while,
Speaker 1: and then they recognize it again. It's a whole new
Speaker 1: group of people recognizing it. Okay, good. I think it's
Speaker 1: encouraging to see these numbers the way they are because,
Speaker 1: according to this guy's pedantic comment on this Reddit post,
Speaker 1: he says the numbers are dwindling, you would expect the
Speaker 1: numbers to go down if they're dwindling. Instead, the number
Speaker 1: of new licenses each year, again, this is not a
Speaker 1: total number. This is a number of new licenses each
Speaker 1: year continues to stay about the same or go up
Speaker 1: a little bit. And you can see that with this
Speaker 1: graph right here. You can see it kind of steady
Speaker 1: from twenty fourteen to twenty twenty one. It's all kind
Speaker 1: of steady, and then it dipped a little bit in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three. And I wonder how
Speaker 1: accurate that information is, honestly, because I have seen other
Speaker 1: graphs where it was basically remaining steady. It got a
Speaker 1: spike in twenty twenty one, and then it kind of
Speaker 1: dropped back down to where twenty nineteen twenty twenty were,
Speaker 1: and it remains steady to where you see it is
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. So I question whether these numbers
Speaker 1: are accurate. Well, let's just say they are. Well, it's
Speaker 1: still an encouraging number to see it raise up about
Speaker 1: from six thousand more new licenses from twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty four. Now, if we can look at
Speaker 1: the total number across the world. The data for worldwide
Speaker 1: I couldn't pull that. I couldn't get the AI, the
Speaker 1: groc AI to recognize that it said about three million
Speaker 1: worldwide from two thousand seven to twenty twenty four. It
Speaker 1: gave the same exact number, and it even says that
Speaker 1: it says we weren't for worldwide totals. Comprehensives. Yearly data
Speaker 1: is not available as thearu's last full global survey was
Speaker 1: in two thousand, three million licenses. Okay, so they haven't
Speaker 1: done a global survey since then. Okay, So let's look
Speaker 1: at USA licenses only. Total number of HAM radio licenses
Speaker 1: in the USA in two thousand and seven with six
Speaker 1: hundred fifty five thousand, eight hundred and today in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, seven hundred and forty four thousand. This is
Speaker 1: a total number of licenses, not just new licenses, not upgrades,
Speaker 1: everything together. How many people have a HAM radio license today? Again,
Speaker 1: we don't have twenty twenty five numbers because we're not
Speaker 1: done with twenty twenty five yet. Maybe middle of next
Speaker 1: year I'll be able to do another video talk about
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five numbers. Don't know what those are yet. Okay,
Speaker 1: But as of the end of twenty twenty four there's
Speaker 1: seven hundred and forty four thousand licensed amateur radio operas
Speaker 1: just in the USA alone, as compared to ten years
Speaker 1: before that. In twenty fourteen, there was seven hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand and twenty fourteen. So we saw a
Speaker 1: spike right here around like say two thousand and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, And that's what I expected to see, because
Speaker 1: we actually got a lot of more people licensed during
Speaker 1: COVID than what you would expect, and then it's kind
Speaker 1: of gone down since then. Sadly, some people probably actually
Speaker 1: died of COVID, especially given the age range of some
Speaker 1: ham radio operators. But and I'm sad to see that.
Speaker 1: I'm sad to see those numbers go down, of course,
Speaker 1: I don't wish that in anybody. But the numbers still
Speaker 1: remain steady. So over the last seventeen years, in total,
Speaker 1: we had six hundred and fifty five thou seventeen years ago,
Speaker 1: and we have seven hundred and forty four thousand today,
Speaker 1: ninety thousand more than we had about seventeen years ago.
Speaker 1: So in all and all, the numbers keep going up
Speaker 1: each year, not down. So yeah, you can be sarcastic,
Speaker 1: you can be pedantic, you can be you know, down
Speaker 1: in the dumps. You can be half this glass empty
Speaker 1: if you want to be. But the numbers speak for themselves.
Speaker 1: The number of lice of people getting their ham radio
Speaker 1: license generally increases each year. The number of newly licensed
Speaker 1: hams and the number of total license hams is on
Speaker 1: a steady rise. It's definitely not dwindling. If it was
Speaker 1: dwindling like this guy said it was, the you would
Speaker 1: see those numbers kind of steadily, either slowly or quickly
Speaker 1: increasing in a downward slope. And they're not doing that.
Speaker 1: They're either going up or they're kind of staying steady. Okay.
Speaker 1: And you know, new people will come into the hobby
Speaker 1: every day, and people will go silent key every day sadly,
Speaker 1: and that's just kind of like the cycle of life.
Speaker 1: So it's up to you and I to get people
Speaker 1: interested in namature radio and tell them what it's actually
Speaker 1: about and not believe crap that you read on Facebook
Speaker 1: and Reddit and Twitter. That's just all down in the
Speaker 1: dumps and sad, sad face people who have nothing better
Speaker 1: to do with their time than just queue about everything.
Speaker 1: So go out today, tell someone about ham radio. Tell
Speaker 1: someone how great it is, because this is one of
Speaker 1: the best hobbies that I have ever been a part of.
Speaker 1: I welcome you. I don't care what you look like.
Speaker 1: I don't care what your background is, I don't care
Speaker 1: where you're from. If you're interested in amature radio, you're
Speaker 1: welcome in this channel, and I welcome you into this
Speaker 1: Ham fam as it's called seventy three guys. I appreciate
Speaker 1: you watching today. If you have comments about this or
Speaker 1: any questions or another topic, put a comment in the
Speaker 1: video below. And if you like this video. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed this, check out these videos over here because YouTube things.
Speaker 1: You want to watch these next. We'll catch you next time.