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[KF6QEX]

"digital" sells radios, and repeater memberships (use our super duper curated "codeplug" that was painstaikenly grafted for members only - we will even sell you a preprogrammed radio so you don't get any ideas about using your own codeplug )
 
more digital, more money, more control.

FM Rocks!

[AC7CW]

FM rocks and watt for watt it is as effective as SSB, at least it was before SDR, seemingly still would be. It just uses more bandwidth

[K3XR]

When digital audio on the ham bands sounds at least as good as the digital audio on a cell phone, it might be worth a try.  In the meantime, I'll stick with the analog audio and give my ears a break. 

[KG7HJG]

So, "analog still wins", for my use case.   Also, my Kenwood TM-V71A is apparently a don't-dare-let-it-go. It's pre-chip shortage/factory-burn-down.

Both my recently purchased NanoVNA and my analog SWR have VHF and UHF SWR below 1.5 for almost all of frequency range.  Antenna tip is 10+ feet above ground with the way I have it mounted (https://www.eham.net/community/smf/index.php/topic,136712.0.html), and I'm hitting 20+ miles repeater and simplex at 10W (with 50W available) in a mixed urban/suburban area with "bigger than hill and smaller than mountains". 

Planning/communication, cel, ham, and maybe even a SPOT or similar....  I don't "plan" on doing anything that would result in having an emergency but it's nice to have options.

[RENTON481]

Just an SWL here, whose sole exposure to digital ham transmissions is hearing the various noises on HF, but I'd think that if one is considering getting a ham license for emergency comm reasons, you'd probably want to look at the numbers.

In an actual emergency, you probably want to have access to the highest numbers of other hams possible, within your transmission range. What percentage use or have access to digital modes, compared to SSB? It's definitely a factor to consider.

[WO7R]

RENTON481: As far as "emergency communications goes", the question isn't the "number" of hams.

The question is whether or not you are plugged into some sort of Emergency Communications Infrastructure.

Sure, we can informally band together and help each other out, but if you look at emergencies (in the US at any rate), what you're really looking for is an organized response and whatever ham radio can do to help with that.

That has little to do with my station unless I am part of it.

I'd take this query over to the Emergency Communications forum where you should get a better response to your query, implied or otherwise.

I am not really an expert on that aspect of hamming, but even casual reading should convince anyone that the days where hams "just showed up and started working message traffic on HF" after a disaster seems to have come. . .and gone.

Whatever is happening is much more pre-arranged and organized.