“Ham Radio is dying!” A phrase all to often uttered that it’s become cliché, but it’s partly true. You can’t deny a considerable section of the ham radio operators in the world are in the latter part of their lives.They won’t be around forever so naturally new people must assume their place. The good news is amateur radio licenses are on the rise. The bad news is the people induced to ham radio these days aren’t interested in pushing the limits of RF technology. To be blunt I’m talking about preppers and those solely interested in emergency communications. Neither of which have any desire to explore ham radio beyond a disaster fetish in which they use their $25 BaoFeng HT to save the world.
About three months ago I unconsciously or perhaps consciously lost interest in ham radio. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me, in fact this was what lead me to allow my license to lapse the first time in 2016. If it weren’t for a new coworker of mine showing interest in ham radio again after a twenty-five year absent; I presumably wouldn’t be writing this post now. His excitement about all of the recent advances that have been made since he was first license reminded me of the things I missed about ham radio. This forced me to reflect on the reasons that I stepped away from the hobby for nearly three months. After some time I narrowed it down to three primary reasons. Without further ado I present to you my three reasons I took a break from ham radio.