Entry Level Consumer and Amateur (Ham) Radio - Best Bands, Frequencies, Equipment

The objective of this article is

doc ham

compare to AM, FM bands

fire, police, emt bands

CB handheld unusable in car

mobile station with 12V SLA or lithium batt pack

AM modulation for safety (can hear several people), but electromagnetic noise from many sources

typical power, antenna size, distance

cannot do CB from inside car with a handheld

bands for taxi, police, fire, etc

only covers handheld or mobile related bands and equipment, with usable voice capability

Yaesu, I-Com, Tin-Tac??

CB, 2m, 70cm, FRS, GPRS

EMS, Fire, Police, Taxi bands

amateur general license

ARRL, local club

internet scanners

used equipment. Include links to e-bay, google shopping, custom craigslist search, amazon.

Mobile, car one is better

good antenna more important than fancy equipment

UHF is line-of-sight

Business Band

GMRS - Theoretical range between two hand-held units would be about one or two miles (about one and a half to three km), mobile units have higher antennas and range of around 5 miles (8 km)