It can be about designing your own digital protocol or software to decode other published digital modes. It can be about attempting to make a contact at the lowest power output with the lowest noise floor at the farthest distance possible for any given situation.
None of these things really require talking to anyone about anything. All that's required is someone to respond with their callsign, location and signal report. 99% of what I've done with ham radio over the last 20 years is mostly just that. Tinkering with radios, antennas, and different digital modes, not sitting and chatting with people.
Maybe you find that all boring too, which is fine, but the hobby is what you make it.
I keep reading this refrain in this thread. Which, when you think about it, means it can't possibly be true. There seem to be more than enough people who think everyone else in ham radio is a bunch of grumpy old farts, so how come this evidently large-enough group people are never on the air to balance it?
Or is it just more fashionable to complain than to actually get involved (with good faith) in the community?
My brain simply cannot wrap itself around it. I'd dare say, the boring farts are boring farts because being a boring fart is literally all you're allowed to. Can't have a longer conversation about anything interesting, because the frequencies are for general use, not expert discussion on $thing. Half of interesting topics are legally or culturally prohibited. Can't do anything actually fun with the radio, either, as that too is illegal.
What is there to do on air? CW sounds cool, but I don't have a peer group it would impress, so: boring. Other than that, fox hunting and chewing rags. I can't see anything else to do there. General chit-chat and whining about equipment and the weather seems to be the common ground, but that is exactly how you become a boring old fart.
EDIT: sure, I'm allowed to build and operate my own transceiver. But why would I, if hardly anything interesting to do with it is covered by the license? SDRs are way more fun anyway.
With that said you can do all of that with fldigi or RTTY or even just using the morse function on most radios thanks to online sdr receivers. but talking to oneself is also "boring" after a bit.
If anyone has a ticket but doesn't really "get" the hobby, go to a field day. The official ARRL field day just passed june 12th or something, but there is a quasi-official winter field day in a few months, It's a 3 day thing, if you want it to be, but noon on saturday till noon on sunday the goal is to make as many confirmed contacts on any bands you can using whatever modes you want. The scoring isn't simple "1 contact = 1 point", you get more points if you're off-grid, or low power, or "outdoors", for instance.
If you've ever been the person that "fixed the LAN" at a LAN party, you might just get a kick out of the entire thing, and it's usually bankrolled by a local club, so if they have a decent number of members you even get good food and a great location.
Our club gets the Sheriff's dept command post truck every field day, and half the people operate out of it, and the other half out of a building somewhere nearby (the rules say all of your antennas and transmitters that score have to be within an explicit radius).
Did you ask them? I'm primarily a casual contester and POTA hunter. Most non-amateurs (and quite a few amateurs) find that boring.
> CW sounds cool, but I don't have a peer group it would impress, so: boring.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but does an activity have to impress a peer (or any) group to not be boring? Amateur radio as a whole is unimpressive to many (most?) people, but why should that stop you?