With all due respect, if you can't think of anything to do with a ham radio license then that shows some lack of imagination. Just because most of the users on voice are boring ass old fucks doesn't mean there aren't interesting things going on in the amateur radio world or that you yourself can't be a tinkerer and come up with your own experiments and contributions to the space.
It's a bit like saying the internet is stupid because of all the social media and you can't think of anything else to do on the internet.
I'm sorry but you are just wrong. Radio is about communicating, and if the only people to communicate with are boring, then what can you really do? And ham radio has way less reach than the Internet, and requires a license, so the pool of people is way, way smaller. You can't compare the two.
Ham radio is about whatever you want it to be. It can be about designing and building your own radio then seeing if you can make a contact with it. Same can be said about designing and building your own antennas.
It can be about designing your own digital protocol or software to decode other published digital modes. It can be about attempting to make a contact at the lowest power output with the lowest noise floor at the farthest distance possible for any given situation.
None of these things really require talking to anyone about anything. All that's required is someone to respond with their callsign, location and signal report. 99% of what I've done with ham radio over the last 20 years is mostly just that. Tinkering with radios, antennas, and different digital modes, not sitting and chatting with people.
Maybe you find that all boring too, which is fine, but the hobby is what you make it.
> if the only people to communicate with are boring
I keep reading this refrain in this thread. Which, when you think about it, means it can't possibly be true. There seem to be more than enough people who think everyone else in ham radio is a bunch of grumpy old farts, so how come this evidently large-enough group people are never on the air to balance it?
Or is it just more fashionable to complain than to actually get involved (with good faith) in the community?
I have a HAM license, I got encouraged by friends from our local Hackerspace to get it. Since getting it, I used my right to TX maybe twice. Those friends, they're not boring. I still have no first clue what they're finding interesting about all this.
My brain simply cannot wrap itself around it. I'd dare say, the boring farts are boring farts because being a boring fart is literally all you're allowed to. Can't have a longer conversation about anything interesting, because the frequencies are for general use, not expert discussion on $thing. Half of interesting topics are legally or culturally prohibited. Can't do anything actually fun with the radio, either, as that too is illegal.
What is there to do on air? CW sounds cool, but I don't have a peer group it would impress, so: boring. Other than that, fox hunting and chewing rags. I can't see anything else to do there. General chit-chat and whining about equipment and the weather seems to be the common ground, but that is exactly how you become a boring old fart.
EDIT: sure, I'm allowed to build and operate my own transceiver. But why would I, if hardly anything interesting to do with it is covered by the license? SDRs are way more fun anyway.
i have rag-chewed on both HF and repeaters (and simplex VHF/UHF) for hours at a time. It's fun, but to me the hobby was a lot more interesting when there were other people using fldigi and such. everyone now is using JT's software and i find automated stuff like that "boring" to participate in, in the general sense. It is extremely useful and powerful as a tool to help detect "skip", the ability and positioning of your antenna, the efficiency of your choking and transmission lines (run wspr at 200mW, say).
With that said you can do all of that with fldigi or RTTY or even just using the morse function on most radios thanks to online sdr receivers. but talking to oneself is also "boring" after a bit.
If anyone has a ticket but doesn't really "get" the hobby, go to a field day. The official ARRL field day just passed june 12th or something, but there is a quasi-official winter field day in a few months, It's a 3 day thing, if you want it to be, but noon on saturday till noon on sunday the goal is to make as many confirmed contacts on any bands you can using whatever modes you want. The scoring isn't simple "1 contact = 1 point", you get more points if you're off-grid, or low power, or "outdoors", for instance.
If you've ever been the person that "fixed the LAN" at a LAN party, you might just get a kick out of the entire thing, and it's usually bankrolled by a local club, so if they have a decent number of members you even get good food and a great location.
Our club gets the Sheriff's dept command post truck every field day, and half the people operate out of it, and the other half out of a building somewhere nearby (the rules say all of your antennas and transmitters that score have to be within an explicit radius).
> I still have no first clue what they're finding interesting about all this.
Did you ask them? I'm primarily a casual contester and POTA hunter. Most non-amateurs (and quite a few amateurs) find that boring.
> CW sounds cool, but I don't have a peer group it would impress, so: boring.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but does an activity have to impress a peer (or any) group to not be boring? Amateur radio as a whole is unimpressive to many (most?) people, but why should that stop you?
Because they only briefly flirt with ham radio? When you account for time on air rather than total number of connectors, it’s probably still all boring people.
Correct, this is the problem. See my other comment here about the difficulty of just getting on a repeater. If you get past that initial obstacle and get on a repeater, just to find that it's not interesting, you don't stay long.
It's a bit like saying the internet is stupid because of all the social media and you can't think of anything else to do on the internet.