> oriented towards RF knowledge and will weed out anyone who just wants to go on the air to talk. Works as intended. > all the digital modes employ proprietar

> oriented towards RF knowledge and will weed out anyone who just wants to go on the air to talk. Works as intended. > all the digital modes employ proprietary protocols or proprietary codecs. Saying "all" is a serious mischaracterization. I think you need to look deeper. Proprietary protocols are widely used, but many amateur radio operators with FOSS background are also active Bruce Perens, the founder of Open Source Initiative, is most vocal critic of proprietary protocols in the amateur radio community. FOSS projects in amateur radio: * WSJT (inc. JT65, FT8) - the standard of weak signal communication on the shortwave band and moonbounce, using state-of-the-art encoding such as LDPC error-correction, GPLv3. * Fldigi - a general-purpose voice modem for common digital modes like PSK31, MFSK, RTTY, Olivia, and CW, GPLv3. * Codec2 - Low-bitrate speech audio codec, free and open source alternative to the proprietary AMBE codec in STAR, bitrate from 450 bps to 3200 bps, LGPL. * FreeDV - digital image transmission, alternative to analog SSTV, LGPL. * GNU Radio - The all-in-one digital signal processing package for software defined radio applications. Not to mention a great number of FOSS software-defined radio receiver/transceiver designs, such as HackRF, LimeSDR, etc. Finally, some famous personalities, Some famous personalities: * Bruce Perens - cofounder of Open Source Initiative, major critic of proprietary standards and proponents of FOSS innovation. His campaign successfully lobbied regulatory agencies to abandon Morse Code requirements. * John Gilmore - cofounder of the EFF, GNU Project. Founded GNU Radio in 1998. * Phil Karn - major contributor of the Internet. Authored many RFCs, including Karn's algorithm, an early implementation of TCP congestion control. On the amateur radio side, he wrote KA9Q NOS, the earliest implementation of TCP/IP over amateur radio, source code included. You see the pattern: Amateur radio doesn't have to be proprietary, but most of the non-proprietary parts of the activity is technical experimentation. To experimenters, an amateur radio license is merely an entry ticket for using the spectrum legally. Just like the world of free and open source software where a skilled user is expected to solve problems by reading and patching source code, in amateur radio, you are expected to solve problems by reading schematics and datasheets. Of course, it's not the only way to participate in amateur radio, many find chatting on the air or exchanging QSL cards are fun. I'm just pointing out that doing technical experimentation is the to stay free and open.