Jeff wrote:

Indeed, compare it with "text communication via radio" not with sending
Morse across a table. Try the same test, but sending a message to ZL or VK,
I am sure that the SMS message would win. The text message would have
arrived long before the band opened and you tuned up your antenna.

But where's the fun and the challenge?

If I want to do business with someone in Australia, I'll pick up the
telephone and avail myself of the investment of billions of dollars in
research money and construction cost for a worldwide communications
infrastructure. If my only objective in this case is to communicate
with a specific individual in Australia, right now, reliably, that's the
way to do it.

If I wait for a band opening and manage to snare some rare DX using only
my modest radio equipment and my wits, that's a completely different
goal. Comparing "communication" via ham radio and "communication" via
sending a text message is a lot like comparing traveling over the ocean
on a commercial airliner with doing it on your own sailboat. Yes, in
both cases you are transported from point A to point B. But goals and
priorities that determine "success" for these two endeavors are much
different.

I'm bemused by where this discussion of the Leno "Morse vs. Texting"
segment has gone. I have to give Leno's writers credit for coming up
with something entertaining and unique. It even gave ham radio a bit of
publicity. But a literal comparison of the two items misses the point
of ham radio as a hobby and avocation.

73, Steve KB9X