US Amateur Licenses

Based on data from AHØA.org

Above are decadal license counts for the past fourty years. Note the increase has been dominated by new Technicians. Data for 1970, 1980 and 1990 are from QST Jan 2011 page 99. How does this increase compare to the US population as a whole? The table below shows the US populataion, the total ham population and the number of Extra class licenses and their changes per year with respect to their initial count during each period. Before 2000 the total amateur population grew at rates well above the population as a whole. After 2000 total ham growth almost stopped, although the rate of Extra licenses continued much higher than the population as a whole.

Year		US Pop Millions	% Increase per year		All Hams Thousands	% Increase per year		Extras Thousands	% Increase per year
1970		203			285			13.4
1980		225	1.08		433	5.19		36.8	17.5
1990		249	1.07		494	1.41		51.9	4.10
2000		279	1.20		677	3.70		75.4	4.53
2010		308	1.04		682	0.074		119	5.78