> I thought it would be cool to have dedicated messaging devices.
You mean something like phones?
You mean something like phones?
The only thing is there's no encryption on amateur radio.
Whatever (text messaging on a HAM band) you want to use, there is not a qwerty (or touchscreen) device that you can use to compose those messages.
You either need to connect a computer to such a device or (I think) there are one or two handheld radios that you can type out messages using multi-tap.[1]
It's worked really well and I've abused the unlimited plan chatting with a few close people while lonely in the woods.