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http://www.ah0a.org/FCC/Graphs.html

The FCC could try to take away some of the amateur radio spectrum. Every now again they try to take some away. In so far they have not been successful. It is only a matter of time though. What with the number of new hams decreasing every year.

You might want to check your facts. The number of licensees in the U.S. is actually at an all-time high. It's been climbing since 2007, when the FCC dropped an outdated Morse Code proficiency requirement. See graphs and some additional stats for the details.

I specifically said "new licenses issued" and mentioned "new members". If you are going to claim that I am "lying", please at least read what I wrote. Do you have some evidence that my claim in untrue? I'd be happy to know about it.

Data on ARS license statistics: http://www.ah0a.org/FCC/Licenses.html

I graphed it in Excel. Send me your email dress and I'll mail you the graph. The data is flat, except for a gradual dip between 2004 and 2010. Hence your ability to claim an increase over the past five years.

One interesting thing the graph shows: decreases in A and N tickets with attendant increases in G and E.

At the moment, the F.C.C calculates 696,960 Amateurs, in January 2011, their numbers were 696,302. The numbers fluctuate around a bit due to license expirations and operator expirations, but there are plenty of us out there.

http://ah0a.org/FCC/Licenses.html

There is a subset of Hams who are the "Get those damn kids off my lawn" types, and they are primarily the reason that some think that the avocation is going away - for them it is.

Other nuggets of their wisdom:

You can't be a real Ham unless you know Morse code

Any idiot can get a license these days.

It was so much better in the 50's, it's been all downhill since then.

Yet the rest of us are working the world without wires, no infrastructure needed, thanks.

I've been licensed since 1993 and have enjoyed ham radio immensely. I've also enjoyed the growth of the Internet, the shrinking size of cellphones, and the ability to send mail via my computer. These technologies are NOT mutually exclusive, and I'm getting tired of people telling me ham radio is dying because the Internet made it superfluous, or that cellphones were the beginning of the end for this hobby/service.

Of course, if you hear something repeated enough times it starts to sound like the truth, so I decided to try and google some information. This is what I found:

http://kb6nu.com/ham-census/
http://www.ah0a.org/FCC/Licenses.html

I doesn't look to me like ham radio is dying at all. In fact it looks like it's growing - not as fast as the general US population, but it's not what I'd call dying, not by a long shot.

73 de KG8KS

Normally I don't feed the trolls, but sometimes the trolls just beg to be fed a little bit of humble pie. It took all of about 20 seconds to find an article showing actual ham deployment, at the request of a local emergency agency, in the US. http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_84aba07a-3d9b-11df-8d7a-001cc4c03286.html A local news source including video from officials involved. Is that "reputable" enough for you?

And ham radio isn't just using "ancient analog technologies" to chat with each other about the bad conditions in nursing homes. While there is a lot of analog technology still in use, hams are also at the forefront of digital (extremely) narrow bandwidth communications development. The other thing to consider is that old analog technology doesn't stop working because one ham's clock is set a little off from another's, essentially what happened in Nebraska to take the 911 systems offline.

Ham radio is also not slowly dying as all the "old fogies" die off. The number of newly licensed hams is actually on the increase. http://www.ah0a.org/FCC/Graphs.html That data is sourced from the FCC license database if you want to go compile it yourself. There was a decline for a few years, but it is increasing in popularity again and is almost up to the pre-decline numbers. More and more young people are getting involved in ham radio. I know personally of several licensed hams who are 7 and 8 years old! The younger hams are very passionate about the hobby and more importantly the public service provided by hams.

As Random Coward pointed out above, if you think if the ham bands were suddenly taken away from hams that the spectrum would all turn into "part 15" unlicensed spectrum, you must not have taken your meds for a while. You said yourself how valuable the spectrum would be if it were to be auctioned off. Do you think the FCC and the rest of the government is going to donate those billions of dollars worth of spectrum to the public domain? They'll go the the highest bidders and they will be defended from illegal users (what "the people" will be) without end.

If you want "the public" to use the ham spectrum, nothing is stopping you from getting your license. It costs $14 to cover the expenses of the VOLUNTEERS who will administer the exam to you. Study materials are available at no charge all over the Internet. Once you have your license you'll be out a couple of hundred bucks for some radio gear to get started using the spectrum as you see fit (within the legal boundaries of course.) Ham radio is not about the "rich" people at all. It is just like any other organized hobby or service, you can do it relatively inexpensively or you can literally spend as much money as you want on it, depending on what you want to do and how far you want to take it.

Say what you will, but your argument doesn't hold water against verifiable facts.