Matt W1CDN

Following up with the US amateur licenses discussion earlier (https://mastodon.sdf.org/@jdavis/111720350879036543), I found some data and made some plots.

Data from ARRL using the Internet Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20150905095114/http://www.arrl.org/fcc-license-counts

I'll put this in a blog post when I get a chance, and share the CSV file when I do. #hamRadio #amateurRadio

Jeff KE9V :sdf: (@[email protected])

"...some disturbing news in hamlandia about the precipitous drop in the number of US amateur radio licensees..." https://ke9v.net/2024/01/08/fading-away.html #hamradio

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Jan 9, 2024 at 3:54amWeb
Show threadMatt W1CDNJan 9, 2024
@jdavis tagging you separately so you can opt in or out of replies.
Show threadMatt W1CDNJan 9, 2024
Looking closer at AH0A's site, he has the total (not split out by state) data back to 1997 in tabular format. I'll see if I can add that in. http://ah0a.org/FCC/Licenses.html
Show threadMatt W1CDNJan 10, 2024

I found some more US #hamRadio license count data in various places and put it all together here. Download the CSV and fool around if you'd like! https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses

Haven't gotten to state-by-state numbers yet.

There *is* a very rough interactive version of the total license plot if you trust me enough to download this HTML file with JS: https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses/src/branch/main/plots/total-over-time-y.html

Big shoutout to @dlarc for the W3HF dataset!

ham-radio-licenses

Datasets and time-series plots of US ham radio license counts over time.

Gitea
Show threadMatt W1CDNJan 10, 2024
Now setting up a cron job using https://github.com/overcast07/wayback-machine-spn-scripts so we can archive the ARRL stats every weekday going forward.
GitHub - overcast07/wayback-machine-spn-scripts: Bash scripts which interact with Internet Archive Wayback Machine's Save Page Now

Bash scripts which interact with Internet Archive Wayback Machine's Save Page Now - overcast07/wayback-machine-spn-scripts

GitHub
Show threadMatt W1CDNJan 11, 2024

Added some more data from W5YI Report issues in @dlarc as well as class data from W3HF. Class plots are getting funky now.

https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses

ham-radio-licenses

Datasets and time-series plots of US ham radio license counts over time.

Gitea
Show threadMatt W1CDNJan 17, 2024
Updated with the last few days of FCC data via ARRL. Here are new plots of the last two years. The rest of the plots and data are at https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses.
(Edited to fix plot with bad x-axis labels.)
ham-radio-licenses

Datasets and time-series plots of US ham radio license counts over time.

Gitea
Show threadMatt W1CDNJan 17, 2024
This is absolutely in reply to another blog post on this subject out there without plots.  
Show threadMatt W1CDNMar 21, 2024

It's been a while but there is a slight flattening of the ARRL license count lately (~last three weeks).

I'm not caught up on the AE7Q and HamCall numbers, but they are consistently above the ARRL numbers.

And just an update on how this is going; every few weeks I update the latest data, but I'm also still going through historical data from the W5YI Report.

All data and plots here: https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses #hamRadio #amateurRadio

ham-radio-licenses

Datasets and time-series plots of US ham radio license counts over time.

Gitea
Show threadMatt W1CDNApr 7, 2024

Welp, that didn't last long.

My most recent update was only for the ARRL FCC numbers. All data and plots here: https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses #hamRadio #amateurRadio

ham-radio-licenses

Datasets and time-series plots of US ham radio license counts over time.

Gitea
Show threadMatt W1CDNMay 25, 2024

US #hamRadio license counts have been updated.

We continue to see a drop of ~1000-1500 licensed hams per month since December 2021. Here's the last two months of totals, according to the FCC counts posted by ARRL:

Now that I'm scraping some of these websites, the updates are easier (but I also forget about them). Data: https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses

ham-radio-licenses

Datasets and time-series plots of US ham radio license counts over time.

Gitea
Show threadMatt W1CDNMay 26, 2024

I do have "enter numbers of new licenses" in the backlog, but there's only so much time I have for this. Licensing rate may help people who are afraid of the hobby dying.

There are bound to be errors in my data--but this is common ground to start from and fix as we go.

Show threadMatt W1CDNSep 17, 2024

I updated the US #hamRadio license counts yesterday. No real change in trends. I need to prioritize filling in historical data so there aren't big gaps in the data.

https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses

ham-radio-licenses

Datasets and time-series plots of US ham radio license counts over time.

Gitea
Show threadMatt W1CDNSep 21, 2024

I am starting to play with new US FCC ham radio license counts scraped from AE7Q.

How should I structure these data so they are useful?

Attached is an example of what I can summarize down to for FCC actions on a certain date. Or I could just count brand new systematic callsigns--these indicate brand new hams (and maybe a few old hams getting back into it). Maybe the cleanest number for how fast/slow growth is over time.

AE7Q has historic data back to 1994. https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses/issues/114

AE7Q new license counts

To track new licenses over time, can we scrape the table under "Retrieving license grants issued on"? Note the date in the URL for easy downloading. https://www.ae7q.com/query/list/ProcessDate.php?DATE=2024-2-02 This goes back to one of the W5YI Report comments that the only way to really m...

Gitea
Show threadMatt W1CDNSep 21, 2024

Interesting thing about the AE7Q database is that "License Status" is as of the date the query is run.

So if you query and see "new systematic call sign assigned" and "canceled" together, that means the call was canceled (maybe in favor of a vanity) *after* the activity date and *before* the query was run.

Show threadMatt W1CDNOct 3, 2024

Another update to the US #hamRadio license counts. I made a few plots of the license action summary data from AE7Q's database at the bottom of the README.

It's interesting that new licenses seem to peak in April/May and valley in September for the last few years.

https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses

ham-radio-licenses

Datasets and time-series plots of US ham radio license counts over time.

Gitea
Show threadMatt W1CDNOct 30, 2024
lol, my brain broke for a split second and I thought about building an interface for these data
Show threadMatt W1CDNNov 24, 2024

Updated the easy total/state/city US #hamRadio data. Something interesting happening in total license count since July 2024.

I need to figure out why my license action scraper isn't working and update those data for the past few months.

https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses

ham-radio-licenses

Datasets and time-series plots of US ham radio license counts over time.

Gitea
Show threadMatt W1CDNDec 28, 2024
Updated the ham radio license data again: https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses
ham-radio-licenses

Datasets and time-series plots of US ham radio license counts over time.

Gitea
Show threadMatt W1CDNFeb 25, 2025

Updated the ham radio license data again: https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses

Pretty sure there is an error with my AE7Q script, which can luckily be checked against the database and fixed.

Sorry, I have not gotten anywhere with the several lovely tools that folks have posted in this thread for downloading the entire FCC database daily.

ham-radio-licenses

Datasets and time-series plots of US ham radio license counts over time.

Gitea
Show threadMatt W1CDNAug 29, 2025

It's been about six months, time to update the #hamRadio license counts: https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses

This was a simple copy-paste with new data, I didn't add/modify any plots or do any better analysis.

All the sources for total US license counts seem to show a flattening or even a slight increase over the past 2-4 months, but still big differences (~830,000 vs ~740,000) in other sources vs. ARRL counts. So I would still look at large trends rather than detailed values.

ham-radio-licenses

Datasets and time-series plots of US ham radio license counts over time.

Gitea
Show threadMatt W1CDNJan 2

Into the new year with an update on US #hamRadio license counts: https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses

I copied and pasted new data from where my scripts have been dumping it. We can see the effects of the government shutdown, although different sources seem to report it differently.

Raw data are available in the repo if you want to run your own analyses!

Show threadMatt W1CDNFeb 22

#hamRadio license data and plots updated at https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses.

So @VE2UWY had a comment about QST readership, so I stubbed out some data based on the "Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation" that US periodicals have to include.

It's still early days, but I bet we can fill this in pretty well.

Added a new (rough) plot.

Show threadCome On Giant Asteroid!Feb 22

@W1CDN

Thanks! I've had no luck finding the USPS statement in the PDFs generated from their web archive. They may "forget" to include that page when you ask the website to export "all" pages.

Show threadDan KB6NU 🇺🇦Feb 23
@W1CDN @VE2UWY It's interesting that the "paid copies" and the ARRL annual report figures vary so widely.
Show threadirrational methodJan 2
@W1CDN You've got me wondering if the extended govt shutdown in 2013 and the extended partial shutdown during Trump's first term also resulted in some blips in the data. I don't recall if the FCC offices were closed during either of those.
Show threadEd W8EMV Dec 29, 2024

@W1CDN

Matt

Is there a straightforward way to get license counts by US county in any of this?

I know that I've seen "top cities" tables, but no aggregates at the county level. And selfishly I'd love to have some orderly way to track "active licenses in Washtenaw County, Michigan" over time.

Show threadEd W8EMV Dec 29, 2024
@W1CDN brb, busy downloading the entire license database from the FCC and extracting some tables, I think I can do this at least locally
Show threadMatt W1CDNDec 29, 2024
@w8emv I haven't tried to look at the raw data in a long time, can you work it into something that makes sense?
Show threadEd W8EMV Dec 29, 2024

@W1CDN

My Linux toolkit of choice for dealing with tabular data is "csvkit" which does a good job of slicing and dicing tabular data. The amateur data set includes a table EN.dat which looks pretty complete for individual user records.

Some fields are obvious, but not all are, and I'll have to do some further reading in the data dictionary.

that said I did find this pretty interesting FCC DB to SQL importer from #K3NG

https://github.com/k3ng/hamdb

with a writeup here

https://blog.radioartisan.com/fcc-callsign-database-script/

GitHub - k3ng/hamdb: A bash script that downloads FCC Amateur Radio licenses data, populates a database, and has a query tool

A bash script that downloads FCC Amateur Radio licenses data, populates a database, and has a query tool - k3ng/hamdb

GitHub
Show threadMatt W1CDNDec 29, 2024
@w8emv that looks familiar! I think I have it written down but haven't tried to make it go.
Show threadNick (Alatar the Blue)Dec 29, 2024
@W1CDN @w8emv here, I wrote this a few years ago to dump both the application and license databases into SQL.

https://github.com/nkbooth/ULSUpdater

You can get the table definitions from the fcc website, but keep in mind they aren’t always accurate.

https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/data/public-access-files-database-downloads
GitHub - nkbooth/ULSUpdater: PHP script to parse the FCC Public Access files and publish into a more standards-compliant database.

PHP script to parse the FCC Public Access files and publish into a more standards-compliant database. - nkbooth/ULSUpdater

GitHub
Show thread📻 Tony N0RUA 📻May 25, 2024
@W1CDN At this rate, ham radio will be dead in 41 years
Show threadMatt W1CDNMay 25, 2024
@tony I guess we have time.
Show threadN0LSDMay 25, 2024
@W1CDN To what do you attribute this decline? My first instinct would be to say that hams are going SK at a higher rate than new licenses are conferred --but is that borne out by the data you're collecting? ...or perhaps we saw a bump in new licensees during the pandemic, and this decline is a return to baseline?
Show threadMatt W1CDNMay 26, 2024
@N0LSD I don't have a theory. My interest is in providing a detailed dataset so people will stop comparing numbers across arbitrary timescales and ignoring what happens in between.
Show threadMegahertzMay 25, 2024
@W1CDN I appreciate this work. But looks like the y-axis scale is to elicit a more dramatic chart/visual? We do need people to take these numbers seriously, so I don't want to take away from that.
Show threadMatt W1CDNMay 26, 2024
@megahertz there are other plots at the link. Or take the data and make your own. I don't have an opinion.
Show threadMatt W1CDNMay 26, 2024
@megahertz sorry if this sounded abrupt. I'm just trying to compile data and leave the theorizing to everyone else. I get the plot design criticism.
Show threadBud TalbotJan 17, 2024

@W1CDN nice work. I like the paneled plots in the repo. I always love using facet_wrap

I can think of a lot of hypotheses that would be fun to investigate based on these descriptives. Generational losses, COVID deaths, prepper influx, etc. This could be a nice little research project. One could try to match a sample of individuals from the FCC database with some other demographics database (census, IRS)

Show threadMatt W1CDNJan 17, 2024

@bud_t yup! I'm not necessarily the one to do those things, but I want the data available.

There's even comparative demographic data in the W5YI Report issues that could be replicated now vs 1980s/1990s. I don't have it pulled out into tabular format yet.

Show threadBud TalbotJan 17, 2024
@W1CDN if I had the time to dig into it, I would love to play. Thanks for making the data available. This could be a nice little stats research project.
Show threadMikel Forcada EA5IYL / N7EESJan 11, 2024
@W1CDN Interesting to see that the number of ham licences in the US nears 800,000 for a population of about 330,000,000, that is, about one ham every 400 people, whereas in Spain, there are about 33,000 hams in a population of about 47,000,000, that is, one ham every 1400 people, about a third of the density.
Show threadDLARC ham radio libraryJan 10, 2024
@W1CDN In case you missed it: https://archive.org/details/1998-03-01_W5YI_Report/page/n1/mode/2up
1998-03-01 W5YI Report : Fred Maia W5YI : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

1998-03-01 W5YI Report

Internet Archive
Show threadMatt W1CDNJan 10, 2024
@dlarc thank you, looks neat!
Show threadCome On Giant Asteroid!Jan 11, 2024

@W1CDN @dlarc

Effects of Morse clear here. Feb '91, radiotelegraphy removed, Tech shoots up. 13- & 20-wpm tests abolished in Apr '00, Gen, Extra shoot up… but not by a lot and it fades.

A line for "total" would be illustrative because only removal of code from Tech seemed to really move the number of hams upward. Or something.

For those that don't remember, Novice & Advanced haven't been issued since 2000.

Show threadMatt W1CDNJan 11, 2024
@VE2UWY the stacked plot shows the total, but there's a lot of work that can be done to improve these.
@dlarc
Show threadEd W8EMV Jan 9, 2024

@W1CDN

Do you have enough data to figure out if the decline is from lack of new licenses or from older licenses not renewing?

Also, covid?

Show threadMatt W1CDNJan 9, 2024

@w8emv there was a bunch of speculation and some links earlier in another thread. It seems like Technicians might not be renewing, but don't know what the whole story is.

Edit: https://mastodon.sdf.org/@jdavis/111720350879036543

Jeff KE9V :sdf: (@[email protected])

"...some disturbing news in hamlandia about the precipitous drop in the number of US amateur radio licensees..." https://ke9v.net/2024/01/08/fading-away.html #hamradio

Mastodon @ SDF