<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE></TITLE>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.5969" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY><!-- Converted from text/plain format -->
<H1><IMG style="WIDTH: 473px; HEIGHT: 346px" height=552
src="http://www.arrl.org/images/view/News/nms_1366.jpg" width=535></H1>
<H1>Surge in US Amateur Radio licenses</H1>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>With more than 18,000 new US Amateur Radio licenses
issued in the first half of this year - 18, 270 to be exact - 2010 is shaping up
to be a banner year for Amateur Radio, the ARRL reports</STRONG>.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma>So far, <STRONG>the number of new licenses issued by the
FCC in 2010 is outpacing the January-June 2009 totals by almost 8.5
percent</STRONG>; at this time last year, the FCC had issued 16,844 new
licenses.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma>In 2009, a total of 30,144 new licenses were granted, an
increase of almost 7.5 percent from 2008. In 2005, 16,368 new hams joined
Amateur Radio’s ranks -- just five years later, that number had increased by
almost 14,000, a whopping 84 percent! The ARRL VEC is one of 14 VECs who
administer Amateur Radio license exams.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>Comparing 2010 to 2009, the only month that had
higher license totals in 2009 was January: 1960 licenses were issued in January
2009, compared with 1726 in January 2010. Beginning in February, 2010 showed
higher new license numbers: 2263 in February 2010 versus 2749 in February 2010;
3463 in March 2009 compared with 3734 in March 2010; 3430 in April 2009 compared
with 3508 in April 2010; 2717 in May 2009 compared with 3136 in May 2010, and
3011 in June 2009 versus 3417 in June 2010</STRONG>.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma>Read the full ARRL article <EM>- First Half of 2010 Sees
Upswing in New Amateur Radio Licenses</EM> <BR></FONT><A
href="http://www.arrl.org/news/view/first-half-of-2010-sees-upswing-in-new-amateur-radio-licenses"
target=_blank><FONT
face=Tahoma>http://www.arrl.org/news/view/first-half-of-2010-sees-upswing-in-new-amateur-radio-licenses</FONT></A>
</P></BODY></HTML>