My friend and colleague Frank/K4FMH has published several recent articles on trends in amateur radio licensing and demographics. This one, The Decline in ARRL Membership and Market Share, has some interesting data and observations about licensing trends in the US. (It also comments on ARRL membership trends, but that is not the subject of this post.) This post focuses on the decline in the number of FCC amateur radio licensees in the past few years. See the chart below.
By License Class
As Frank points out, breaking this out by license class is illuminating. Unsurprisingly, the Novice and Advanced class licensees are experiencing a slow, steady decline. This probably represents the natural decline of a set of licensees when no new licenses are issued. Advanced class licensees declined 4.7% per year from 2019 to 2024. Some of these licensees may be upgrading to higher class licenses, but anecdotally, I think this is a small effect.
The Technician class is more concerning, with a 7.2% cumulative decline starting roughly in June 2021. (The data is in 6-month increments.) Being the entry-level license and representing about half of the total licenses, it is a strong indicator of ham radio licensing activity, in general. One potential factor contributing to this decline is that COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings started around March 2020. In most areas, the VE exam opportunities dropped off dramatically, which could have affected the number of new licensees. This triggered a new emphasis on offering online exams, so exam availability improved during the following years.
Fees and Dabblers
Another factor is that the FCC fee implemented a $35 application fee in April 2022. However, this came after the Technician decline started. Although the $35 fee is arguably “reasonable,” I expect it to decrease the number of licensees.
Many Technicians are only dabbling in ham radio.
Dabbler: someone who takes a slight and not very serious interest in a subject, or tries a particular activity for a short period.
These Dabblers may get their license in response to family or friends encouraging them to do it. Or they may have a work connection such as being a firefighter, law enforcement officer, or emergency medical technician. Or maybe they were curious about the hobby, but it did not quite take hold. When they get to the point of renewing their license, many Dabblers will likely decide not to spend the $35. One might argue that the Dabblers are not engaged in the amateur radio service so having them drop out may be just fine. Whatever the reason, the result is fewer licensees.
Frank points out that the General and Extra Class numbers are increasing, reflecting healthier activity in those license classes. However, the slope of those curves is pretty flat, and the General class declined slightly during the past year. From December 2019 to December 2024, the General class numbers increased by 3% and the Extra class by 4%. US population growth was about 3% during this time, so these two license classes are just keeping up with population growth. I’d argue there are fewer Dabblers in the General and Extra ranks as they have demonstrated enough interest and commitment to the hobby that they went to the trouble of earning a higher-level license. Accordingly, the $35 FCC fee would have less effect on these two license classes. (I don’t have data to support this, so it is just my own little hypothesis.)
Back in 2018, I made some comparisons between ham radio and other activities. These ratios have probably not changed much in 7 years.
In 2018, the number of amateur radio licenses in the FCC database was about 0.2% of the US population, which remains about the same today. Of course, not all those licensees are active, so this overstates ham radio activity. Birdwatching came in at 3% of the population, so it’s 10 times more popular than ham radio.
Conclusions
Technician decline is real and should be a cause for concern. I don’t think we should panic but if this trend continues, the ham radio population will wither away. I mentioned the probable impact from COVID-19, which should be a transient event that has now passed. The impact of the FCC license application fee (if any) could be long-lasting.
It is well known that the radio amateur population is skewed towards older individuals…mostly older men. Aging does cause people to leave the hobby over time, either by death or by reduced physical and mental ability. This is probably part of the picture, but why would it only affect the Technician numbers?
What do you think?
73 Bob K0NR
I think I’d like to know where arrl gets their numbers, because they are NOT representative of what’s actually in the FCC ULS.
As of January 20th 2025, there are 833,495 individual license holders in the ULS, and 12,171 clubs.
The data I used is not from the ARRL.
It was compiled by Keith Greiner AK0Q.
https://sites.google.com/site/amateurradiodata/home
Additionally, the technician count is wrong, there’s currently 423,121 licensed techs. (as of Jan 20).
The ARRL is way off and it’s simple to get the numbers out of ULS.
What I’ve found out is that the FCC database is not clean. For example, it has licenses listed as “active” even though the expiration date has passed. Keith Greiner pulls the data from the ULS on a regular basis and corrects these errors. The result is that his license counts are lower than what you’d get by just scraping the ULS.
Bob, could the downward trend be explained by Technicians upgrading to a higher class sooner than they have historically?
Hi Ray,
I supposed that is a possibility. However, the plots for General and Extra do not show an inflection point at the same time. Because the number of Techs is larger, I’d expect to see that. And why would this new upgrade pattern start in June 2021?
Bob K0NR
I’d like to see the GMRS license trend line against the Tech trend line. I’d bet the rise in popularity in GMRS is eating away at the Tech licenses. For people that want an out of the box communications solution without the tinkering and building, the GMRS license makes more sense.
Cale,
That’s a good thought.
Lately, I see a lot of interest in GMRS for basic comms.
See https://www.k0nr.com/wordpress/2021/07/use-gmrs/
Bob K0NR
Many folks get into amateur radio to use repeaters. Since the FCC (and manufacturers) promote GMRS repeater use and GMRS doesn’t require any type of test (plus the $35 license fee covers the entire family), if that individual’s repeater needs are met by a local GMRS repeater they tend to ignore the other benefits of amateur radio and simply pay the $35 to the FCC for their family GMRS license.
If the desire is the continued growth of amateur radio through the growth of Technician class licenses, we need to tailor our focus on today’s new GMRS license holders and help them understand that amateur radio’s many additional benefits are worth the additional time and effort to get their Technician license (and later upgrades).
You know what I think that there are many license, who get their license but don’t realized that they are no longer amateur radio operators. And they also use it as a personal gadget, which they remember when they were radio amateurs, as if it were a memory.
Stefano,
Looking at the number of licenses has several limitations but it is the best data we have for counting of radio amateurs in the USA.
Our licenses are valid for ten years, so if someone dies their radio license shows as active until the ten years is up (unless someone contacts the FCC.) And, of course, just because someone has a license does not mean they are active hams.
73 Bob K0NR
Here’s an interesting look at GMRS data by Frank/K4FMH:
https://k4fmh.com/2023/02/11/there-are-almost-as-many-gmrs-licenses-as-techs/
Thanks for your efforts on this. As pointed out above, the data has issues. I suspect it is straight forward enough to count current licensees in each class. Conclusions about trends would seem to require more information.
While new licenses are updated contemporaneously, the failure to renew has a decade long lag. Not knowing whether there have been upgrades also makes conclusions more difficult. Your chart with the drop in Technicians licenses and the relatively flat numbers of General and Extra licenses could be 0 technicians dropping out, but rather upgrading and the dropping out occurring solely in the General and Extra classes. And, differentiating lapsed licenses due to death from just not renewing would appear to be helpful.
Where is the ARRL on these topics? One might guess that they are still engaging in internecine warfare when they could be leading. The RAC did a study a couple of years ago. Imagine if the ARRL did one and fixed some of the design flaws in the RAC study.
Finally, looking at gross numbers rather than per capita might also mask the actual trends.
Hi Greg,
Thanks for the comment.
The inflection point in the Tech licenses looks to me like “something happening here” and I don’t see a significant change in the General and Extra licenses at the same time. So I doubt that the Tech change is caused by upgrades, but it could be. A good study would be to track individual licensees to see what happened.
Where is the ARRL on this? Good question.
Bob K0NR
One last observation. Looking at the net number of licenses, rather than looking at the number of new licenses and the number of non-renewed licenses might also mask the underlying trends. There could be increased numbers of both, indicating greater success in licensing and an even bigger failure to retain.
Thanks for the article! My thoughts are all a guess; as for tec tickets social programs, (FB, Tic Toc, etc) are much easier, way more interesting, and cheeper with the thought that everyone has a cell theses days so easier to access, easier to use thus ham radio a much harder more effort to use. Ham radio can be a little “cold” at times as some days one calls out to make a Q and there is no responce. Today people want a quick responce, maybe FT8 & other data modes way quicker and more responce but after a few hundred Q’s, fairly straight forward from then on, but that can be said for other modes as well.
General is not that hard but extra tickets are more challenging but by that time one must have the mind set that you want to be challenged by more awards or more contacts, building radio’s and on and on. “Older” people generally find what they want out of life and go after it. Retired people have more time and can spend more time. I’ve met several hams that couldn’t pass code requirement’s and still feel that because of that they got out of the hobby even though no code today, not interested. The other side is those who found ways to enjoy this hobby, some throw a lot of money at it and reach their goal, others not so much money but are challenged by low power, over come HOA’s restrictions, make do with what they can manage, maybe work(ed) in electronics field, and love it.
No easy answers, I’m guessing it’s generally been an “older persons” hobby, maybe we need that statistic as well, the average age each year for last 20 years? Interesting hobby for me and for many others.
AL Stewart N1SMB