As 2012 came to a close, ARRL VEC Manager Maria Somma, AB1FM, had a good reason to cheer: The number of radio amateurs in the US reached an all-time high of almost 710,000. “2012 was definitely a banner year for the number of Amateur Radio operators here in the US,” she said. “It is amazing to see these new numbers and to know that Amateur Radio is experiencing such a healthy trend.”
In looking at new and upgraded licenses, as well as licensees per ARRL Division (see the charts below), Somma also crunched the numbers looking for growth within each license class — and all of Amateur Radio — over the last 40 years. “This is an all-time high for Technician, General and Amateur Extra class licensees,” she said. “When looking at the three current license classes, the number of Technicians, Generals and Amateur Extras peaked in December at 345,369, 163,370 and 130,736, respectively.”
Somma explained that the total number of US amateurs in the FCC database also continues to grow each year: “As of December 31, 2012, the number of licensees reached an all-time high of 709,575; year-end totals were 702,056 for 2011 and 696,041 for 2010. The number of licensees increased at an average rate of 21 per day, while the number of US licensees has increased by 7 percent since 2008!” More than 3000 new licenses were issued in 2012 than in 2011, while upgraded license activity remained steady in 2012.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Hmmm… Somehow, I’m willing to bet most of these new amateur radio licenses are due to the amateur radio license required to use the analog video transmitter that can do medium to long range FPV RC model piloting. 🙂
Hmmm… Somehow, I’m willing to bet most of these new amateur radio licenses are due to the amateur radio license required to use the analog video transmitter that can do medium to long range FPV RC model piloting. 🙂