On the other hand. Actual ham radio needs exotic and antiquated equipment, and for all of that you will get a clunky walkie-talkie that can’t do the walkie part and has extremely limited bandwidth, that would collapse if even 0.1% of the population tried using it.
If you do have all the gear and license and just tried to find how to send even 2400 bits per second to another ham radio operator, it would take weeks just to find one another and setup this feat of engineering.
Modulations are obsolete, not even QAM64. There has been no attempt beam forming on HF so there is only very few channels that can be used concurently.
All in all it’s like CB but with extra steps.
A hobby, not a reliable, practical method of mass communication and very stuck in its ways where preserving the spectrum is more valued than communication.
You kinda made my point with the whole “try and find another operator to send 2400bps to” part.
The digital communication is not conventional, it’s revolutionary.
Analog communication is conventional. And radios and their components aren’t exotic.
Yes, modern communication is fantastic. But analog will still be more reliable
