2025 was a strange year for the amateur radio license numbers. While 2024 ended with about 745.6k licenses on the books, this was deemed "normal" and we could all safely dismiss any concerns about that total declining by 23.6k since the end of 2022.
2025 did not begin well. The totals slowly declined to 742.5k in June, and then rose very slowly to 744.4k by the end of September. That was still a net decline of around 1.2k from 2024, but it was spun as a huge victory. Surely we would end 2025 with a modest gain, and we could chuckle at anyone who ever believed otherwise.
Then The Shutdown happened.
With the federal government shut down, the FCC no longer processed new licenses or renewals of existing licenses. Obviously, the numbers would decline. My records show that we lost 7.1k amateur licenses during that period. That's a lot over about two months.
But not to worry, because there would be a strong "rebound" after the shutdown ended. Many, many (we were told) new hams had taken their exams, the paperwork was all in the hands of the appropriate people, and we'd see a big influx of new licenses as these applications were processed by the FCC. Many, many (we were told) people were breathlessly waiting for the chance to renew their expired licenses.
The shutdown ended with the total reduced to about 737.9k.
In the last part of November, we did see strong growth of about 970 in the net gain category. That's nice, but still a far cry from the 7.1k net decline we had just suffered. But December wasn't much better: just under 1100 net gain. Nice, but not some kind of massive rebound representing pent-up demand.
We ended 2025 with a shocking net decline of just over 6.6k in the license totals. Of those losses, just under 5.5k were in the Technician Class. The General Class remained largely stagnant, only seeing a net loss of 18 licenses in 2025. The Extra Class saw a net gain of just over 1300.
The significance of the continued decline in the Technician Class was, of course, dismissed out of hand. Although 49% of the total licensed amateur community, the entire Class was cast as a ghetto of idiots, losers, and lazy bums who never should have been allowed in to the senior hams' private club in the first place. It became popular to call for eliminating the Technician Class altogether.
The stagnation of the General Class was blamed on lazy Techs who were too stupid to know that it's their JOB to advance to the General Class. Oh, and it was also pitched as a "good sign", because it meant (to some people) that large numbers of General Class licensees were upgrading to Extra -- rather than dying or otherwise exiting the hobby.
The growth in the Extra Class was spun as a glorious victory, even though we achieved a nearly identical net gain in this Class in 2024 (1350 as opposed to 1325 in 2025).
Shifting narratives
After devoting years to denying that the totals were declining in any meaningful way whatsoever, the losses in the shutdown prompted an entirely new narrative that required ignoring that the previous narrative had become untenable.
The new narrative is now this: the numbers don't matter.
Now, we all know that the numbers will "matter" again if they show a sustained increase. As I've said before, the amateur group-think is evolving into something resembling religious faith. Whatever the latest decree by the Wise Elders, the previous decree that we all obediently bowed to becomes forgotten. Regardless of the actual situation, we are always winning -- or just on the cusp of a big win. The hobby can never fail; we can only fail the hobby by losing faith in the brilliant wisdom of our Great Thought Leaders.
This new narrative is based on the usual false dichotomies found in all discussions of the hobby. If the hobby isn't "dying", then the only reasonable thing to believe is that the hobby is vibrant, robust, and completely healthy -- or at least, that's the zero-sum logic put forth by the Great Minds. There is no middle ground, such as "slowly declining and losing popularity". We don't need to engage in any introspection or discuss why this is happening. The Old Guard has spoken, and we nod along with the idea that these declines are completely irrelevant.
This is why there is no need to square narratives of a robust "rebound" with the actual anemic results.
January 2026
Big things were expected this month. After more than two months, the hordes of newly-licensed Techs and the vast crowds of those who licenses had lapsed during the shutdown would make a strong showing. All doubts would be erased.
The month is virtually over, however, and we ended with a small net decline. We now have about 330 fewer licensed amateurs than we had at the end of 2025. The number of Extra Class licenses actually declined by a net of 50 this month. The General Class saw a net increase of about 80, and Technicians declined by about 100. Not the kind of stellar "rebound" that was expected.
Summary
We have now entered some kind of magical never-never land where hard facts melt in the face of blind faith. For a hobby that considers itself to be some kind of intellectual elite towering over the feeble minds of the average citizen, this marks a fundamentally different turn in rhetoric.
We are told that we need to cleanse the amateur ranks of half our numbers, by getting rid of the Technician Class. Since "the numbers don't matter", losing half of the total also "doesn't matter". If 363.5k Techs never saw the value in upgrading to General from Technician, I'm not sure how strong the lure of General Class privileges really is. It seems obvious that a hell of a lot of those people don't even find Technician Class privileges to be compelling, judging by the tens of thousands allowing their licenses to lapse. Once again, the Wise Elders are dramatically miscalculating how desperate the average person is to participate in amateur radio. We already have to lie, browbeat, cajole, and exaggerate to bring in new Techs. It beggars belief that making it much harder to get an amateur license will result in more people making the increased effort to join the hobby. Further, it makes it crystal clear to existing Technician Class licensees that they aren't welcome in the hobby -- thus accelerating the broad exit we are already seeing.
Will making the amateur population "purer" really make it "healthier"? If you define HF operation as the only worthwhile aspect of the hobby, I suppose it does. If you casually dismiss everything else (packet, satcom, microwave, VHF/UHF weak-signal) as merely "fooling around", I suppose this would make sense. But is the hobby really "healthier" by relying on the paternalistic 'wisdom' of the Wise Elders to tell us what's best for us? Or is it healthier to allow operators to choose their own path in the hobby?
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