A.  Circa 2005, a prominent amateur radio community organizer reported at a hamfest forum of hearing a supposedly credible prediction that our amateur service would be gone within 5 years.  That prediction didn’t come true.  The W3BE crystal ball, moreover, predicts that it will still be around in the year 2037… but probably in a form considerably different from that during its first century of existence.  It also predicted the Baltimore Ravens would win Superbowl XLV.

   The current political climate seems to be that the need for professional communicators using our spectrum transcends the need for bone fide amateur operators.  The professional communicators have been given access and, in some instances, even have priority over our amateur service communications.  Having now grown legs and jumped over the no-pecuniary-interest barrier, we can expect this movement to further expand in the near term; probably engulfing the hobby and overwhelming its freewheeling experimental aspects well before 2037.

   Our amateur service community organizers are shunning the traditional motivation of providing a radiocommunication service for the purpose of self-training, intercommunication and technical investigations carried out by amateurs, that is, duly authorized persons interested in radio technique solely with a personal aim and without pecuniary interest.  They have embarked on an aggressive expansion of the ULS data base license grant listings. 

   Our National Conference of Volunteer-Examiner Coordinators has petitioned the FCC to make our Amateur Radio Service accessible to as many citizens as possible (RM-10870).  This petition came from those who we must rely upon to maintain our question pools and coordinate our VEs’ license examination sessions.  Qualifying for an FCC license grant reportedly has been lowered to an unimpressive $20, 10-hour study effort.   

   The prototype that our amateur service best seems to be destined to emulate in places where it is regulated by the FCC is the Part 95 Citizens Band Radio Service.  A half-century ago, it existed as it was intended to function:  a private, two-way, short-distance voice communications service for personal or business activities of the general public.  Upon growing to over ½ million licensees, however, it rapidly took off, attaining some 35 million users and becoming a disorderly, often X-rated speaking, too-difficult-to-regulate crowd.  Licensing and other efforts to maintain its usefulness to the general public had to be curtailed.