# Overview

Data and code for analysis at https://mastodon.radio/@W1CDN/111723969200676208.

Introductory blog post: https://w1cdn.net/2024/01/us-ham-radio-license-counts-over-time/

This is a work in progress. It is not intended to be immediately useful for
detailed analysis, but to act as a guide for further investigation. As we figure out
how to slice up and caveat data, it will get more organized.

# Resources (not all integrated yet)
- Various items in the [issue queue](https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses/issues)
- Post from KE9V that started this: https://mastodon.sdf.org/@jdavis/111720350879036543
    - Blog post: https://ke9v.net/2024/01/08/fading-away.html
- ARRL stats on the Internet Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20150905095114/http://www.arrl.org/fcc-license-counts
- AH0A data from FCC
    - Total stats: http://ah0a.org/FCC/Licenses.html
    - Main page: http://ah0a.org/FCC/index.html
- FCC numbers as images of tables: https://sites.google.com/site/amateurradiodata/home
- K8VSY's per capita estimates: https://k8vsy.radio/2021/09/ham-radio-licenses-us-states-per-capita.html

# Contributing
I am trying to stage new data in the [issues](https://amiok.net/gitea/W1CDN/ham-radio-licenses/issues) list,
then copy that data into tabular format at a later date. 

If you want to help, here are some ways:
- look at the issues and copy data into tabular format, share back in CSV format or pull request
- find new sources and create an issue for each new chunk of data (use best judgement)
- download data and QC: look for potential errors and inconsistencies, share those in a new issue
- download data and run analyses: share your interpretations
- choose your own way to contribute!

# Rough Plots
![Alt text](plots/total-over-time-y.png)
![Alt text](plots/total-over-time-2000.png)
![Alt text](plots/total-over-time-2-years.png)
![Alt text](plots/class-over-time.png)
![Alt text](plots/class-over-time-2-years.png)
![Alt text](plots/class-over-time-facet.png)
![Alt text](plots/states-over-time-freey.png)
![Alt text](plots/cities-over-time.png)
![Alt text](plots/cities-over-time-freey.png)