Is Amateur Radio Still a Thing?

I ventured out to the Fulton County Amateur Radio Club monthly meeting on Monday. It's a nice group of guys all excited to help and answer questions for the new HAM radio operator. I was waffling on which radio to purchase: a hand-held style (HT) putting out around 5 watts, or a mobile unit putting out around 50 watts (but with far less features). I really just want to be able to hit some of the local repeaters in the northwest Ohio area, some of which are on I.R.L.P. and EchoLink. The Wauseon repeater is around 7 miles from my location, and I want to be able to at least hit that one with a clean signal. The guys at the club assured me a 5 watt hand-held (with a good antenna) will be more than adequate to connect over that distance. So I finally ordered my radio this week, going with the Yaesu/Vertex VX-7RB. It's a quad-band (6m/2m/1.25m/.70m) HT with enough bells and whistles to keep my occupied and out of trouble for a while. At least until I get my General Class License and start getting into HF. I did have my first EchoLink contact last Sunday. While playing around with the software settings, I had a drop in QSO with a nice guy in Australia. We chatted for about half an hour which was surprisingly fun. The new HT arrives on Wednesday, so I'm looking forward to that!