Amateur radio is indeed about as practically useful as a miniature steam railway*, but that’s not the point.
It is also about as much fun as a miniature steam railway (imho, lots!) and about as variable in popularity, with a lot of overlap with the same kinds of people: grandpas and grandkids.
I find it thrilling to be able to communicate between countries using two bits of consumer electronics and an ionosphere, although I’ve only ever done it using someone else’s WebSDR. I’m glad a tiny fraction of spectrum is left open to actually do this.
*I like the idea of my local Mechanical Engineering Society having delusions of grandeur about laying new track, post hurricane, to deliver insulin.
I think it's easy to miss how fragile society is. Imagine your power grid goes down (storm, hurricane, even just too cold like in Texas). A day or two later the cell towers start dropping off. This can happen in the USA (like in Texas last winter).
Ham radios have totally been used to help get meds, it's one of the use cases for winmail, it's much more accurate to have an email like service than it is to have two ham radio folks spelling long drug names pheonetically ... twice, to help ensure a life safe drug is correctly identified.
It is also about as much fun as a miniature steam railway (imho, lots!) and about as variable in popularity, with a lot of overlap with the same kinds of people: grandpas and grandkids.
I find it thrilling to be able to communicate between countries using two bits of consumer electronics and an ionosphere, although I’ve only ever done it using someone else’s WebSDR. I’m glad a tiny fraction of spectrum is left open to actually do this.
*I like the idea of my local Mechanical Engineering Society having delusions of grandeur about laying new track, post hurricane, to deliver insulin.