This is just 146.520 with extra steps, everyone will just use that instead. It's not like there's competition, that frequency gets more and more dead by the year.
Digital is the present and future for amateur radio. M17, for instance, can do all of this and way more. Extremely high efficiency digital voice, GPS location data pings, text messaging and arbitrary data with store and forward if you want, routing/addressing.
Also, by far the most heavily trafficked frequency anywhere I've been is APRS which is digital store and forward messaging. It's just extremely antiquated at this point.
For HF there’s all sorts of digital stuff going on. Check out FreeDV for a Codec2-derived digital voice mode. We are also doing packet radio (yes, AX.25, still built into the Linux kernel) with BPSK/QPSK modems on HF replacing the 61 year old Bell tones- see https://wiki.oarc.uk/packet:ninotnc#experimental_new_modes_f...
I recently stood up this site to support and track the re-emergence of the / redevelopment UK packet radio network- which is utilising VHF, UHF, a geostationary satellite, as well as HF. https://ukpacketradio.network/
It’s not my bag but I see a lot of VARA going on too.
There’s a lot more going on than just WSJT-X.
I have a good ear, and can pick people out of noise, and I think most Hams have that too. I'm less concerned however with the need for spectral efficiency - we have vast amounts of lightly used spectrum, ultra-narrowband is not really needed for us - and for digital specifically, I'm much more interested in modulation schemes that are durable - and will work in very low signal situations (like being able to sustain traffic at lower than -100dBm).
My gripe with digital in the end, is its all or nothing, and often in weak signal, it's nothing. I say this as someone who works in the two way radio world for my day job.
That all said, I've had another unrelated idea for years of being able to build multi-band wide area trunked and non-trunked systems with roaming.
The first part of it is a beacon operating in every area this network exists, I've taken to calling it a localizer - but basically it'd broadcast a band plan on a handful of known frequencies (say allocating 8-10 fixed frequencies in each band, with the idea that only one per band would be used in a given area), with frequencies, which talkgroup ID's they carry, what operating mode they operate with (digital of one or more flavors, analog, etc), where the local control channels are for any trunked systems, what talkgroup ID's those systems carry, what area that localizer covers (a bounded box for example), and what the adjacent localizers are.
So when you turn on your radio and put it in this operating mode, it's going to scan the known frequencies for beacons, then auto-program the local RF properties in.
From there you can chose a channel (your radio would auto-program from the localizer), and you can chose that 'channel' - if its trunked, you'd register to that system, but for conventional analog or digital, you would just tune into it. For systems using dial on demand talkgroups, you could just request that talkgroup be served to you as part of your registration.
The idea is to create a multi-band, multi-mode radio system, that anyone could use with the correct radio. But because it would also include conventional analog repeaters, anyone with any radio made in the last ~60 years could still participate.
If any of this sounds familiar, its because some of it is borrowed from Nextel - its not exactly how Nextel worked, but iDEN didn't have a consistent band plan from city to city so when you'd turn your subscriber on, it'd scan for control channels, then register to one, and as part of that process, you'd be sent the band plan for that market (because Nextel was not built out of a national allocation, but rather individual SMR pairs which varied from market to market).
I'm also really interested in medium bandwidth mesh radio applications (ala Ricochet).
What it solves relative to its competitors is having an open voice codec instead of relying on a very expensive silicon encoder/decoder chip while also having greater flexibility and performance.
Also, if we just look at data capabilities, Meshtastic is a much more interesting comparison.