[ponker]

I’m not a ham but I totally agree with the old guard on rejecting digital. MAKING your own equipment is an essential aspect of why amateur radio is worth preserving — it makes the network very resilient. In a world where digital electronics become very hard to acquire, hams can still maintain essential communication by tearing out components from microwaves and landfills. No such chance if everyone’s dependent on RTL-SDR chips from eBay.

If ham radio goes digital then it’s just people wasting spectrum on something they could be doing on the Internet.

[detaro]

Being around after the collapse of civilization is neither the only nor the primary purpose of ham radio, and there's a world of difference between "not rejecting digital tech" and "everyone's dependent on RTL-SDR chips from eBay".