Is Amateur Radio in Australia at the cross-roads?

A detailed analysis of amateur radio licensee numbers and trends over the years, has just been published by Jim Linton VK3PC and Roger Harrison VK2ZRH.

The report is titled 'Amateur Licence Reform - Just In Time?'

The authors say that there are signs that the serious decline in amateur radio in Australia that has occurred since the mid-1990s, may be moderating.

While total Amateur licensee numbers are still declining, the rate of that decline is levelling off.

With an explanation about this, here's Roger Harrison VK2ZRH.

"The decline in Amateur licensees over the past decade is well known. But the un-asked question in the back of many amateur's minds is: 'will the recent reforms boost numbers and reverse the decline?'

Jim Linton VK3PC and I decided to investigate what, if anything, had happened over the lead-up to the announcement of the new Amateur Licence Conditions on October 19th.

Well, there are a few surprises. It seems many aspiring amateurs who sat their licence exams over 2002 and 2003 chose not to sit for the Morse exam as they anticipated that Morse would soon be dropped.

As a result, the two no-code qualifications in the old five-tier licence structure - the Novice Limited and the Limited - received a burst of popularity.

In August 2003, the former regulatory - the ACA - published their Discussion Paper on the Review of Amateur Regulations, which foreshadowed dropping of the Morse qualification and other changes.

On 1st January 2004 no-code licensees gained HF band privileges. The rest of what the ACA proposed for the new Amateur licensing regime was published in May 2004, but only came into effect this October.

Between October 2002 and October 2005, Novice Limited numbers rocketed by 240. That's forty per cent of the licence's total growth since it was introduced in 1995.

The real surprise is the Limited licensee numbers - they grew by 175 in the same period.

We think some lapsed licensees have come back into the hobby as a result of the changes that first began in January 2004.

Unrestricted, Intermediate and Novice licensee numbers fell between 2002 and 2005, but not so fast as they had before.

The full story is in a new Linton-Harrison Report published in this month's Amateur Radio magazine."

[The report shows that the total licensee numbers reached a peak of about 17,500 during the early 1990s]

Over the past nine years the Unrestricted Licensee numbers had a steep decline with a loss of nearly 2,000 or more than 20%. Certainly, the number of silent keys every year is a contributing factor there.

At the same time however Novice ranks fell 934, or about 44%.

So, have we been able to 'stop the rot' and can we now look forward to a dramatic increase in the amateur radio community? With thoughts on that, here's Jim Linton VK3PC.

"Australian amateur radio is not out of the woods, yet. True, the new Foundation Licence, offering an attractive entry level to the hobby, appears to be building an encouraging level of interest.

However we can't sit back and just rely on the new licence restructure and reform of regulations, to do it all for us.

Think about this! With encouragement, perhaps lapsed Novice licensees will return to the hobby now that they're able to take up a Standard licence, with its enhanced privileges.

In fact, any lapsed radio amateur needs to be encouraged back to the new era for ham radio. But they have to know about it - publicity targeting them is crucial.

It's not surprising to witness that the new Foundation Licensees are instant ambassadors for amateur radio and exposing it to their family and friends. Unfortunately, this same promotional bent is not shared by many other radio
amateurs.

Roger and myself look forward to reporting back in about 12 months time - to again review the state-of-affairs and track the success of the Foundation Licence and other recruitment efforts."

Everyone interested in the well-being of amateur radio should have a read of the Linton-Harrison report in Amateur Radio magazine and on the Internet at
www.amateurradio.com.au/VKARtrends

Source: Wireless Institute of Australia

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