I agree it is largely boring, particularly on the local bands where it's basically a local discord of people talking about traffic.

But if you get your General license you can play with HF and get geeky with antennas, try to make contact with people on low power (qrp) on protocols like JS8.

I was able to make contacts from Texas to South America and Canada, and even Europe I think, on 10w with a crummy EFHW antenna, a wire slung over a tree at 45 degrees.

As far as more geeky protocol hacking, I haven't gotten into it.