ARRL Release 2020 Annual Report

In the report ARRL President Rick Roderick K5UR says radio amateurs must embrace the changing landscape and accept the ever-changing technologies in our hobby today

It's notable that after years of decline ARRL membership increased in 2020:

  • 2015 - 170,528

  • 2016 - 164,070

  • 2017 - 159,070

  • 2018 - 156,899

  • 2019 - 156,755

  • 2020 - 158,494

Pages 18-19 of the report cover the switch to an online test session model in 2020 in order to keep exams running safely during the pandemic. Hundreds of Volunteer Examiners (VEs) were trained to conduct video-supervised online exam sessions using the ExamTools online examination system. By the end of the year, ARRL VE teams had remotely tested nearly 4,000 applicants. There is one candidate per session in an online test session, and teams conduct multiple sessions per day.

The shift to the ExamTools online examinations system has allowed ARRL VEs to better serve our members. The program works for online or printed examinations to manage, conduct, and grade a test session. The comprehensive program utilizes GradeCam to automatically grade exams in seconds using the camera on a phone or computer, which eliminates the need to manually score the tests.

Download the ARRL 2020 report - http://www.arrl.org/annual-reports