I'd characterize Shannon's work as more of academic interest (for most Ham
radio) than practical interest. *In most of what most Hams do, there are
just too many other issues to deal with.

Please note the use of the word "most". *I'm sure there are exceptions,
but I expect they're a small part of hamdom (as is microwaving, sigh).

--
Rich * W2RG

I think you've hit the nail on the head..

If you're communicating with deep space probes, you've probably
already eked out the last tenth of dB everywhere else in the system,
so you can worry about coding and how close you are to the Shannon
limit.

If you're a ham, especially microwave rovering, then getting the last
couple dB is the least of your problems. It's easier for the ham to
get 3dB by some other means than, say, implementing coding.

Where some kind soul has made using coding easy, it's used (e.g.
JT65).