There was an interesting article in QST a few months ago about the number of Hams in the US. They mentioned some of the difficulties in determining that number. It is easy to count licenses but of those licensed how many are actually active. One thing that could throw off the AMSAT numbers is life members. I am guessing that ballots are sent to everyone. My life member number is 875 which was issued in 1978. I imagine that there are many more life members today but even if mine was the last one issued 27% of the 3176 could be life members. Just because you are a life member that does not mean you are active or even remotely interested.
I found it very difficult to determine who to vote for. My first step was to send an email to all the candidates. Only two of them even bothered to reply - that pretty much eliminated the rest. Next step was to vote for people I actually heard on the satellites. I kept a little list in the shack and checked off names as I heard them. When it came time to vote there was only one person on that list or in my log but they had previously replied to my initial email so were already in. I then decided to vote for people who said something meaningful in their bio. There was only one but they were already on my list. I then decided to vote for the youngest person but ages were not listed. My fall back criteria when all else fails is to vote for the cutest woman but for obvious reasons that was not possible. All in all I think a 22% return rate is pretty good and certainly not worth worrying about.
73 W9KE Tom Doyle
On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 10:37 AM, Alan P. Biddle APBIDDLE@united.net wrote:
So with 700 ballots received, we got a return rate of 22%.
73s,
Alan WA4SCA
-----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Martha Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 10:13 AM To: AMSAT BB Subject: [amsat-bb] Information on Ballots
This year, 3176 ballots were mailed.
-- 73- Martha _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb