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As long as radio waves can travel through the air, amateur radio will not die. Why would it?

• jodrellblank 6y ago
  In 1900-1940 you could talk to people far outside walking distance, miles away, without needing to pay a phone bill or choose one person to ring up and talk to, using some of the most advanced technology on the planet, to achieve things you simply couldn't do any other way, and explore phenomena nobody had looked at. In 1940-~1990 you could talk to people internationally, places you could never go on holiday, watching valves give way to integrated circuits, lead acid batteries turning to NiCad, improving signal sensitivity, reliability, portability, take part in the hobby developing around the mass availability of personal cars for things like assisting at sports events, or disaster assistance and relaying emergency messages, competitions like radio contact from hilltops, taking part in the developing space industry - satellites! Now you can't build advanced radios from scratch in your shed, they're massively complicated microcontrollers. There's no need to build your own power supplies, cheap and efficient and reliable ones are abundant. There's no need to build your own radios, for the same reason. And the internet exists; chatrooms where you can talk to random people around the world are abundant, internet broadcasts of airport control towers and such are available, smartphones make portable contact nearly ubiquitous. Exploring new things is fine, but when you can find hundreds of YouTube videos showing you that it really is explored pretty thoroughly by now, that damps the allure.
• mtreis86 6y ago
  Politics, regulations, and lobbying by telecom companies are all wolves at the door of the hobby.