Matt W1CDNJan 9, 2024

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

Mastodon @ SDF
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 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 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 W1CDN
@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.
May 26, 2024 at 4:27pmWeb