So we're outsourcing. What else is new?
I don't see any reason to care about these numbers. At all.
When we start worrying about "head count", we start encouraging all kinds of people with no care, interest, or talent in radio to get licenses. Then we start complaining about the "dumbing down" of the hobby. Then the dummies get bored and let their licenses lapse. Then we start worrying about "head count" again.
Quality, not quantity. I don't care if there's only five of us left.
I agree with that, but you missed my point entirely.
The point is, how many active U.S. hams are using bands like 40m phone, compared to the rest of the world? Is there any reason why the proportion of VHF-only users, paper-only hams and presently-inactive hams, versus active HF phone operators, would be vastly different in the U.S. than elsewhere? If anything, the percentage of total licensees listed in the FCC data base, who are currently active on HF, might be
lower in the U.S. than elsewhere.
The people who are wanting to keep U.S. hams restricted to the back of the bus on 40m, by prohibiting phone below 7125 kHz despite the fact that very few U.S. hams are using 7075-7125 for CW and data, are still using the 1950's-60's era argument that there are so many U.S. hams on the air compared to the rest of the world, that the frequencies would be so swamped with Yank slopbucketeers, that foreign phone and data operators would move down lower and crowd out the CW operators, just to get away from the unwashed hoards of US phone stations.
I am suggesting that those numbers statistics call into question the validity of that argument.