Foundations Of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio Amateur radio is an activity enjoyed by many people around the world. How many exactly is cause for debate. The most recent official figure we have is from the IARU, the International Amateur Radio Union. In 2020 it counted over 3 million people, but an article written a year later puts that figure at 1.75 million. In Australia there's a common narrative that the total amateur population is in undeniable decline, some think that it's on a stark decline. Interested in hard data, for years I've been collecting information around the amateur population in Australia and I can report that across the nine years that I have data for the total variation is within two percent and it's not a straight line down either. There was a dip in 2020, potentially associated with training and callsign allocation being moved from the Wireless Institute of Australia to the Australian Maritime College, something which is going to change again shortly when amateur licensing in Australia will revert to