I’ve read the post Digital Modes Have Already Won written by VE3VN twice. Then I read it again. Ouch! It hurts so much because it so accurately details the current situation on the HF amateur radio bands, particularly with regards to DXing. Ron does an excellent job of telling it like it is with painful accuracy. This isn’t a hit piece on FT8, not at all. He posits that to each his own and then highlights the perfectly valid reasons why it’s popularity continues to wax while that of CW continues to wane:

“CW is a vanishing art. Other than contest weekends and DXpeditions there is little to be found on the bands. When you do find stations to work, they are the same ones you worked yesterday”.

Truth. I’ve noticed it, we’ve all noticed it. The most painful part of his entire treatise is the realization that this is a done-deal. He isn’t painting a picture of some dystopian future view of our hobby if we don’t immediately change course. The change has already happened and HF radio is now dominated by the digital mode and there is absolutely no reason to believe things will ever go back to the way we were.

Perhaps without even noticing it we reached an inflection point that shifted the game to something new and obviously interesting for many hams while at the same time alienating an apparently smaller portion of hams in the process.

My particular discomfort with this evolution of ham radio is no doubt due to my age and having practiced the hobby in a particular way for so long. I’m proud of my 20th century roots and will tell anyone that many of the ways of the 21st century just seem wrong to me. That my own kids refuse to talk on the telephone preferring to text their messages to me is just flat out weird when seen through the filter of my lifetime. Apologies for living too long?

Bottom line here is the world of HF DXing has changed considerably and it seems hams like me have two choices. Embrace the new ways and learn to derive some enjoyment from them or find something else to do. Fortunately, ham radio includes many facets of radio communication that aren’t HF DX, though to be honest, I’ve sampled most of them and have yet to find a place I wanted to pitch my tent.

Life is short which means time is short and it’s pointless to spend whatever might remain of it complaining about change. Not to be a noodge, but that time would be better spent looking for an off-ramp from one thing to something new.