a social circuits column…
Number Two
Ham licenses in the United States have continued to rise, reaching almost 780,000 by the end of 2021. This was an increase of just under one half of a percent over the previous year (0.47%). The RSGB and Essex Hams have reported that the invigilations (courses) taught during the Covid-19 Pandemic have been a smashing success in the UK. The ICQ Podcast has reported in several episodes during this time period at the great success in licensing new amateurs through this method. Some remote testing has gotten underway in the US too so it’s no surprise that this license increase continues, even if at a small pace.
But how integrated are these new hams into the hobby’s social organization? (Or the long-standing ones, for that matter.) It may begin with joining a local club, perhaps the one administering the license exam by their VE Team. But joining national organizations are critical, too. The ARRL has for years now billed itself as The National Association for Amateur Radio which, by any individual comparison to other groups (AMSAT, TAPR, etc.), it certainly is that. The popular blogger, Dan KB6NU, and my colleague as a Presenter on the ICQ Podcast, has periodically written about ARRL membership numbers and trends. Moreover, he has made an argument that the League should establish a benchmark against which to measure progress in actually reaching it’s avowed status as “THE” association that it is by default. Back in 2008, he wrote:
“Don’t get me wrong. I think that we do need a national association representing amateur radio, and in the absence of any other viable national organization, I think the ARRL is it. But the ARRL has to do better at attracting and retaining members.
Someone else commented that looking at what the NRA was doing would probably be a good idea. Benchmarking the ARRL against the NRA would be an interesting and very useful exercise, I think. We should find out what the NRA, and other similar large, membership-based organizations are doing right and doing wrong, then figure out how the ARRL can benefit from this knowledge.“
But was is the market share of licensed hams in the U.S. reached through membership in the League? Knowing that is a pre-requisite for thinking about setting a benchmark.
bench·mark
https://languages.oup.com
/ˈben(t)SHmärk/
Surveying
noun
1. a standard or point of reference against which things may be compared or assessed.
“a benchmark case”
I recently sent an e-mail request to the ARRL address that was specified in the Who to Contact section of the League website. After about a week without any response, I sent another and learned that the address specified was only checked weekly. OK. Kathleen Callahan KC1MBY, an ARRL staffer, kindly got me the data that I requested after a few days. She’s a delightful correspondent! But at first she directed me to a link that she said had all of the data I requested and more. However, I found that membership data on that page is restricted to staff, Division Directors, and Section Managers. OK, I’ll bite. I’m an volunteer Assistant Director in the Delta Division so it was chopped-liver for me, I guess. But I got the annual end-of-year membership from 2001 onward that I requested within a week. The League has just sequestered the membership data behind a login-credential that does not allow members and most volunteer staff to access them.
As the graph illustrates, membership today is about where it was 20 years ago. It’s only down by 1.5 percent (or -2,414 members). Very stable, it seems. But it got back to the future, if you will, through a drop during the 2005 era to under 150,000 and a very dramatic rise to over 170,000 during 2015. This rate of growth over that 10 year period was 1.3 percent per year. Those involved with ham radio during that period will quickly say: it’s the no-code Techs that were behind that spike. (The FCC dropped Morse Code requirements in 2007.) Yes, there are more Technicians licensed today than in the past but there are just as many more Extras as well! Let’s look at the numbers.
In 1997, there were 73,737 Extra Class licensees as compared to 314,532 Technicians. Technicians were by far larger than the top license class. By 2021, the respective license numbers had climbed to 154,347 Extras, an effective doubling of 109 percent over the two decades or so. Technicians, by comparison, had reached 396,232 in number or just a gain of 26 percent. Hmm. Well, a share of those Extras began as Technicians which makes the crude comparison of static numbers like this complicated with regard to the full interpretation of such change. We need to assess the “ham career” of individual licensees making the sequential transition (or not) from Technician to General to Extra but that’s for another column. Suffice it to say, the rise in no-code Techs is part of the change. But Extras were a strong element, too.
Dan KB6NU has continued to opine on member trends, some of which are contained in remarks made in various episodes of the ICQ Podcast. But back in a 2014, he wrote this clear and direct assessment:
Dan has continued to argue that the 25 percent level should be a nominal benchmark. His remarks are textbook evaluation research methods: you must set a goal to benchmark movement from the present into the future in order to effectuate change. Otherwise, you’re just enjoying summer by drifting down the lazy river.
But what are the actual trends in market share over this past couple of decades? The League doesn’t include such analysis in their Annual Report documents (see ARRL.org and search for Annual Reports). Here are the results of the analysis of adding FCC licenses (purged of expired records) to what Kathleen KC1MBY sent me on end-of-year membership numbers. It looks like Elvis left the building in 2015! Actually, Elvis in this case is the long-serving and very popular CEO David Sumner K1ZZ who retired that year. But the point is clear from the graph: Elvis left the building right after his long-running show in 2015.
More analytically, the market share has bobbed and weaved over this century, rising during the post-Morse Code testing requirements for a few years. It began a consistent and clear decline since 2015. Now, the critical reader might say, that’s only 3 percent or so, right? But that is over 5,000 actual members since then. Let’s see, 5,000 X $49 annual membership dues is about $245,000. No, this doesn’t amortize Life Members (like me) from the equation and so forth but it’s a feasible illustration. That’s enough coin to pay the CEO from examining the annual ARRL IRS Form 990 records on executive compensation. So it’s significant from that perspective alone.
Dave Sumner’s exit per se may have only an indirect effect on this declining market share in membership. The tumultuous period after a long-term leader exits is often just that: an organization experiencing seismic shifts in both the internal culture as well as its relationship with the constituency that it promises to serves as members. Most readers will be highly aware of this period in which successive CEOs were hired and not re-elected because of Board and constituency conflicts over future directions of this non-profit membership organization.
I’m on Dan KB6NU’s train: the League should set a market penetration goal and direct programs and strategies to reach that goal in the next 5 years. One quarter of the licensed ham population in the U.S. seems to be a reasonable goal for The National Association of Amateur Radio. And, channeling President Reagan: Mr. CEO, tear down that wall! At least, the credential wall for making ARRL membership data unavailable to members when they login to “their” website! Is that too much to ask? Wouldn’t that “advance amateur radio” in the U.S. as the ARRL mission states?