Cost of FCC 2-Way-Radio License

bgum wrote:
What I was asking: His wife could carry the radio and neither transmit unless there is an emergency such as an attack by a rabbit or other aggressive animal.

Short answer.

No.

Long answer..

FCC emergency use provision is for a person holding a Ham license to use other Ham bands that their license may not normally allow for events like the Zombie attack to assist, coordinate, help with your local and national government..

Ham operators under dire emergencies like floods, earthquakes and other major disasters which may interrupt normal communications, can be called up to provide local and national emergency communications.

Hams can and do participate in many emergency drills which are designed to work with local and national emergency groups to ensure there is good coordination and communication at all levels.

Personal emergencies like a hangnail discovered on a leisurely walk through the scary woods, not so much.

FRS/GMRS radios, you can't do much damage.

Ham transceivers, you can cause some damage and modified Ham (out of band transmission) or commercial transceivers you can cause considerable damage by tramping on other services that may be crucial or critical to keeping folks alive (wonder why the FAA has been squawking about 5G? Yeah happens some of the radio spectrum that the cell phone companies plan to use for 5G happens to be very close to critical aviation services that help air traffic using instrumentation safely land).

FRS/GMRS transceivers are channelized to specific frequencies, within those channels some are restricted to low power levels and the FRS/GMRS will automatically dial back the output. FRS/GMRS transceivers are designed so they cannot transmit out of those specific 22 frequencies. Those frequencies have been determined by the FCC to be safe to other services which may be outside those FRS/GMRS channels..

Ham and other commercial radio transmitters are not channelized and have specific rules for power levels, transmit bandwidth and other specifications.. If you do not know what you are doing or do not understand or care about what you are doing you can interfere with someone else.

Using Ham bands requires a greater responsibility, responsibility requires some demonstration of some knowledge of the rules the FCC has required.

That is why you have licensing requirements that require you to take a test. The Tech license tests are based on basic rules of operation, basic FCC regulations. The higher Ham license class you go, more privileges you get, the more technical details are required. Absolutely no code is required any more for any of the Ham licenses.

The Ham tests are given by most Ham clubs that have enough VEs (VEs are the folks that have sufficient license class to volunteer administer the exams). The clubs typically will only ask for just enough to cover their cost for the exam materials and the cost to file with the FCC.

To get started, you can get a Tech License booklet from American Radio Relay League (ARRL) (use https://www.arrl.org/which has all the basic info you need for the Tech license plus in the back is the current test pool questions and answers.. You can practice test yourself be reading and answering those questions until you are comfortable with the question pool.. Then go to your local Ham club to take the test..

FRS/GMRS license at $70 for 10 yrs isn't all that bad, that is $7 per yr or TWO CENTS PER DAY for 10 yrs.. And no exam required, just fill out your paperwork and send in..