How Many Hams Are There?

According to the statistics of the International Amateur Radio Union, there are nearly 3 million ham radio operators around the world. Each one has a unique "callsign" issued by his/her government. No two hams share the same callsign.

Japan has nearly half of the world Amateur Radio population nearly 1.3 million. The Japan Amateur Radio League (JARL) has a membership of 134,493. The United States has one-fourth of the world radio amateurs. Less than 30 years ago, the US was home to more than half of the world amateur population. However, at that time the total world ham population was barely more than 400,000! Amateur Radio has grown in the US but has been growing even faster in a number of other countries, not just Japan.

Germany has the largest number of HAM Radio Operators of any European country. The Deutscher Amateur Radio Club (DARC) has a remarkable of the licensed HAMs in Germany as members. The United Kingdom has nearly as many amateur radio operators as Germany. The Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) has a good number of licensees as members. In France, there is about 18,500 radio amateurs.

Indonesia�s position on the list may surprise you, since Amateur Radio barely existed there as little as 25 years ago, but it would not surprise anyone who attended the 1991 IARU Region 3 Conference in Bandung. Organisasi Amatory Radio Indonesia (ORARI) is a well organised and effective national association in a country where radio communication is very important, and member ship in ORARI is compulsory to hold an amateur license.

Spain is another country where Amateur Radio has experienced rapid growth in recent years. For more on Spain, see Hows DX? and Happenings this month. Accurate statistics for Russia are difficult to come by at present, but the estimate of 38,000 is probably close enough to establish its relative position. Italy has about 30,000 amateurs, making it either the fourth or fifth largest country in Europe in terms of HAM population, depending on whether you count Russia (many of whose amateurs are in Asia) as a European country.

In China, there are about 1,050 radio amateurs. Compared with China, India has many more Amateur Radio Operators (10,598). The national association - ARSI (Amateur Radio Society of India) - is affliated to the International Amateur Radio Union. ARSI is promoting the growth of Ham activities all over India.

If you look at the statistics in The Radio Amateur Callbook you will note that some of their figures, particularly for Japan and India, are dramatically lower than those given here. The reason is that the Callbook figures only include those amateurs for whom they have address listings.

By ITU Region, the IARU statistics show there are 442,193 amateurs in Region 1 (Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union), 830,492 in Region 2 (the Americas), and 1.7 million in Region 3 (the rest of Asia and Oceania).

Ham population of some of the countries

1 Japan 1,300,000
2 USA    679,864
3 Germany      79,666
4 Spain      59,000
5 England      58,426
6 Thailand      50,914
7 Canada      47,464
7 Brazil      32,053
9 Italy      30,000
10 India      10,598

At the end of �2000 = 2,986,772 in the World !

Courtesy of IARU

Revolving Globe

History of Ham Radio in India

The history of ham radio began in India as early as 1921. The first Indian ham late Amarendra Chandra Gooptu, started his transmission in the year 1921 with a callsign 2JK. He was the lone ham at that time and so his radio transmission was a one way traffic. Those having the receiving equipments could listen to his broadcast. 2JK was followed by 2HQ, Mukul Bose (changed to VU2HP) in 1922 and VU2AG, Loken Bose in 1924. So two way ham radio contacts among Indians started from 1922 onwards. However, during the 1923s 20 British hams were operating from India.

India's first short wave public broadcasting station belonged to Dr. Matcalfe, VU2KH, a leading radio amateur and who was the Vice-Chancellor of Mysore University. He and his group of radio amateurs established an entertainment public broadcasting station VU6AH in the year 1935 and had listeners all over India.Amateur Radio licensing was closed and ham radio equipments were taken away by the authorities when the World War II broke in 1939.

At the end of World War II, the authorities started issuing temporary amateur radio operator's licenses from 1946. By the beginning of 1948, there were hardly fifty odd licensed hams of which a dozen or so were active. On May 15, 1948, Amateur Radio Club of India (ARCI) was inaugurated in the School of Signals at Mhow with Major B.M. Chakravarti, VU2BU at the helm.

In May 15, 1954, Amateur Radio Society of India (ARSI) was born at New Delhi taking over the ARCI which by then had moved from Mhow to Bombay and finally to Delhi.

Taken from:  Brief History of Amateur Radio in Calcutta-by Avinash Missra, VU2EM:Hamfest India '96 Souvenir


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