I use the numbers that the ARRL and W5YI have used. I have NO idea what the true numbers are.
However, I do know that if 5,000 or 10,000 thoughful responses were sent to the ARRL Division Directors with a Cc to the ARRL President, then I believe that you would see a change. If 10% of a Divisions ARRL membership want to vote their current Director out of office, they could because if I remember from the last numbers in QST, Division directors are elected by less than 10,000 votes. Its not easy to get 10,000 division votes...but it can be done if a couple dozen hams in a division put their mind to it. Walt/K5YFW -----Original Message----- From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of list email filter Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 11:33 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] Re: Tearing Down USA's Data Wall (300 symbols/second) Walt, Are there really ~500k 'active' operators, and more than 200k on HF? Or is that just licenses that haven't expired? I personally know 2 licensed 'hams' in my area that don't even know what their call signs are, let alone have any intention of ever owning or operating a radio, and they tell me that there are lots more like them... organizations such as the local ski patrol have pushed to have all their members licensed, they drilled on the tech pool questions and became hams, 5 years after testing, less than 2% of them are active (could put a basic 2m fm station on the air with less than 48 hours notice). I used to be the local ARES resource coordinator, and wrestled with the problem of trying to recruit some of the nearly 130 licensed hams in my area (population < 6k) into participating in local emergency communications, fewer than 30 of the over 130 licensed hams were active. The inactive licensees actually seemed to have less interest in amateur radio in general than the general public. It was much easier to recruit new members, and get them licensed than it was to get a response out of the existing amateur population. Of the ~130 I doubt more than a dozen or so would care less about bandwidth based band plan proposals, and I doubt more than 3 or 4 even know about it. Don't know what it would really take to get the board to 'listen', but as the vast majority of the respondents seem to be opposed to the proposed changes; and the fact that they have an unsolicited response rate as high as it already is, to a proposal with virtually no mass publicity, not a politician in the world would consider themselves to have a mandate. I doubt they'll ask us, because if they did, they wouldn't like the answer or the numbers at all. Remember, 'smart' lawyers never ask questions they don't already know the answer to, and 'smart' politicians never ask questions when they know the answer they'll get doesn't support their position. Erik N7HMS Walt DuBose wrote: > But is 1471 such a large number given that there are about 500,000 > active amateur radio operators in the U.S. and more than 200,000 on HF? > > If there were 10 times the number of responses, then the Board might listen. > > 73, > > Walt/K5YFW Announce your digital presence via our DX Cluster telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Our other groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dxlist/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup http://groups.yahoo.com/group/contesting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wnyar http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Omnibus97 Yahoo! Groups Links
