On Wed, 29 Jan 2020 10:41:51 +0000, Gareth Evans
wrote:

To disambiguate the lack of understanding
of other contributors ...

Q. What is Ham Radio?

A. Ham Radio is a technical pursuit for those who
are interested in the science of radio wave
propagation and who are also interested in the
way that their radios function.

snip

That may well have been the original case but as / when all the old
geezers die, the bands will be re-allocated to things that more people
will make use of and it (or most of it) will die along with them.

I took my G7 licence to be able to set up a 2m then 70cm packet radio
station / node (into GB7HSN) and did so as a form of (mostly free)
communication with my older RA (mostly G4) friends. As soon as I had
reasonably priced access to the Internet, I turned my packet station
off (Kantronics KPC3 TNC and a modded Icom IC-453 ex PMR rig).

About the only time I ever used voice was to talk to the Mrs (G7ICX)
on her FT23R when she was in hospital with our newborn child (easier
for her than getting to the payphone).

It was good in it's day ... like AM CB. ;-)

Cheers, T i m