i dont know, been licensed since 2009 and lately something just feels off. local repeaters are dead quiet, the club meetings are mostly the same 8 guys who were there when i joined, and every time i try to get someone new interested they lose steam after they pass the tech exam and never really do anything with it. not trying to be doom and gloom about it, i still love getting on 40m in the evening and just ragchewing with whoever's around. but it feels like the energy is different than it used to be. maybe im just getting older and nostalgic lol. anyone else notice this or is it just my area

yeah honestly same here. our club had like 40 active members in 2015 and now we struggle to get 12 people to show up. the repeater gets used maybe once a week if were lucky. that said i've noticed a weird uptick in activity on HF, like 17 meters has been surprisingly lively lately, maybe people are just moving away from the local VHF stuff and going straight to HF. which is fine i guess but it does change the whole social fabric of the thing. used to be you'd get on the local machine and just know everybody. now i dont even recognize the callsigns half the time when i do hear someone

got my ticket last year and tbh the repeaters were already dead when i got here so i dont have much to compare to. went straight to FT8 because at least somethings actually happening there. maybe thats part of the problem idk