Ham radio’s “next big thing” events seem pretty far apart these days.
Transceivers all continue to was to do what FlexRadio did with the FPGA SDR transceivers, often with an overlay of knobs to make pretend that the latest rig is something special based on the past.
Volume QSO production is formulary digital, with the ham operator merely monitoring and occasionally taping a key or two, if not even fully automated.
So you want to do POTA, well you can tap a few keys and whip out your credit card to order up a nearly ready to go POTA-kit.
My industry is commercial roofing, and asked for my “biggest concern” for an international seminar I am scheduled to attend, I recently wrote:
And biggest concern is the multifaceted homogenization towards commoditization that is removing the delivered product differential in the roofing industry. This descent to a common denominator on a system, system manufacturer, product, technology, as well as installer, labor, techniques, warranty, performance results, is changing our industry.
I could have written the same about Ham Radio.
“When it all seems the same, having lost differentiation, it is a less worthy endeavor, and certainly not an adventure.”
Another issue we face is the endless shilling – the look at me promotion – that follows so many parts of the hobby.
I’ll offer a very short piece from a Blog/Podcast I’ve followed for the last 14-15 years – The Art of Manliness:
The catch-22 facing modern creators — the feeling that you can’t make it unless you promote your work online, but you can’t do good work if your bandwidth is always being siphoned off by the act of promotion — has serious implications for both individual creatives and entrepreneurs, and for the health and vitality of our culture at large.
Seems we see a fair bit of that in Ham Radio, eh?
73
Steve
K9ZW
With Varying Frequency - Amateur Radio Ponderings 
You make great points, Steve.
One might add the current trends in news reporting. Lots of promoting nothingness in an attempt at somethingness.
Once upon a time inventors were engineers, as well as being artists, as well as being philosophers. These days the young attempt to reinvent the wheel, with varying results, usually able to make it shine and glow and flicker, but of far less usability.
But in bygone days men sought GOD, the creator of the universe, and today “men” seek to make themselves god, to build the world their way, in their form. This rebellion is a costly one.
But there are still hams out there, with real radios, with microphones, and are talking on them. And there are still hams that actually build their own radios, and their are still those who use a telegraph key to communicate, and copy the code without a “reader.”
One thing that has had a great impact on ham activities, from what I can see here in Georgia, is the deed restrictions preventing antennas. Lots of time, money, and lobbying by the ARRL has done nothing to change it, though “they” say they’ve made progress. Limiting a ham to short excursions to a local park to operate, and the “urge” to make as many QSOs as possible in that limited time frame, is a great detriment to the old days of rag chewing.
I am proud to have a Rag Chewers Certificate among my ham accomplishments. And my first radio sits in my bedroom–a Heathkit HW8–with my first key–an old military key. And both work just fine.
Hum. I shall, one day, post a picture of my tuna tin transmitter and receiver with a bell and a whistle attached. …. .. …. ..
73 de Wil N6BVZ/4