This, been a ham for 20 years, have never been on the mic. Digital modes are where its at and where all the fun tinkering is. Plus there's so many small radio kits you can also build if you want to tinker that way, not to mention antenna building which is an entire hobby in itself.

Get your General license and get on HF and have fun. Be the change you want to see. There's more to ham radio than just decrepit Boomers talking about their gout and diabetes. It's like saying there's nothing interesting to do on the internet because of social media.

This sounds great. I just got my tech license and have just been messing with the UV-5R radios. The chatter on the local repeaters isn’t boring either.

But I was drawn to ham radio because I am tired of the internet today. I want to get that feeling back like the early internet.

Early internet with bizarre protocols like gopher and finger. You had to know your way around and everyone else put in the effort too. Just a great time in history to connect with someone across the world

HF digital mode sounds like a blast

Then you will enjoy the digital modes because there are so many different ones that all use different tech to accomplish different tasks. Some are extremely popular (like FT8, which is BY FAR the most popular thing on ham radio, even more than voice), down to very obscure experimental digital modes that very few people use but half the fun is trying to use them and see who else may be out there trying to do the same.

The FCC also just increased the bandwidth limit on HF so I expect a ton of new experimental modes to start popping up in short order.