What's very interesting is the licensing requirements for Ham Radio, while being dumb, are very good entry points. [1] and [2] essentially give you flash cards and tell you when you have enough of the questions memorized to pass the exam. Once you do that you can use [3] to find an exam session. These are usually hosted by radio clubs so you can immediately find a club of people who like radio and live by you. If you live in Tucson, Arizona or Dayton, Ohio you're in a lot of luck since they are the biggest clubs I know of.

There's mainly a few "areas" people like:

- Digital (PSK, etc)

- CW (Morse Code usually over long distances)

- Repeaters (VHF, a small local community, essentially TeamSpeak)

If I had enough money I'd buy a FT-100D [4] since it lets you do "everything" (poorly) in a single package which is important for me since I live in a small apartment.

When you get your license, go to your local radio club, tell people you're new, and ask them to participate in something called "Field Day". It's a disaster preparedness "drill" done yearly and works like a contest: talk to a bunch of people regardless of method and get points for it. You'll see everyone doing everything. There's people doing QRP (very low power transmissions usually off batter/solar) and QRO (people using very high power radios). Digital/analog, etc.

[1] - qrz.com

[2] - www.hamradiolicenseexam.com

[3] - www.arrl.org/find-an-amateur-radio-license-exam-session

[4] - https://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamhf/3473.html