> It's mostly old guys erecting large antennas to connect their boat anchor tube radios to, from what I read online.
It's somewhat unfortunate (but understandable) that the rep ham radio gets is based on a few old dudes talking on HF. Whereas the reality is that the most popular mode in ham radio by far is digital, not voice (namely FT8).
I've got a friend who has been fixing those things since he was a kid in the 1950s... I've been helping him recently, it's an ersatz apprenticeship.
Almost everything is now well beyond economic repair. It's all about emotions and nostalgia for almost all of the gear.
I no longer jump when something smokes or pops, and I know it's usually a good sign, as it helps you figure out where the trouble is. ;-)
I've learned to hate Silver Mica capacitors, and came up with a technique to help track down the noisy ones. (Take out all of the tubes, leave B+ on... measure the voltage across all the resistors, most of them will read 0 volts, if you do get a voltage, check the schematic and see if it's reasonable, if not... there's current flowing to a bad silver-mica cap through it. It really cut down on the time to find issues)
Collins 30S1 amplifiers.... those will always command fear and extreme caution. 3000 volts at a solid Amp will easily burn off limbs, and it will hurt like hell as you watch it happen to you. Or... it'll just kill you, and burn your corpse.
That's the best type of faultfinding, much faster and less tedious than tracking down subtle faults. Locating the source of burning smells and touching resistors to detect excessive heat work well too.
Never had much problem with silver micas, paper and electrolytics are usually much more troublesome.
Re the Collins, I'm very glad I started with high voltage stuff, if it had been the other way around and I'd started with semiconductors I'd likely have electrocuted myself, getting used to low voltage first wouldn't have been a good idea. As it was I was bitten several times, once so badly that I was essentially paralyzed for quite some minutes. That was 850V.
"It's mostly old guys erecting large antennas to connect their boat anchor tube radios to, from what I read online"
I disagree, it's much more that, far too much to discuss here. A starting point would be to check the ARRL and RSGB handbooks which provide a reasonably comprehensive overview of AR. (Google each for more info.)
There are many more specialist books if you want even more in-depth information.
Old guys are amazing. They have a lot of knowledge and stories to share. I got into ham radio earlier this year, got my license too, and now learning CW (Morse). I've learned so much from these "old guys".
I think a lot of it depends upon how you are exposed to the stuff. When I started studying more my license, I was interested in the technical side of things and dreaded having to learn Morse. I got lucky in that the requirement was dropped before taking the exam, but it still left a sour taste in my mouth. It also doesn't help when you go to the local hamfest and sizable fraction of the gear on the tables is tube related. It gives the impression that the hobby is not only stuck in the past, it is stuck in the distant past.
Don't get me wrong, I am fascinated by tube computers. Yet that has more to do with being interested in modern computers and having a desire to learn about how we got to where we are today. Without that interest in the contemporary, the historic would have little relevance to me.
It's a great hobby if you are in it for the actual tech itself. Check out e.g. https://pysdr.org/ for a nice introduction. There is https://www.rtl-sdr.com/ to get you started and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Radio for more advanced stuff.
You don't need a license to listen!
Also, people are doing some crazy stuff: https://pietern.github.io/goestools/guides/minimal_receiver....