> are still out of reach of many people

Is ham radio any better on this front? Equipment is bulky and expensive, often requires a large antenna which might be problematic in apartments, requires specific skill (a satellite phone usually "just works") and requires a license before you can legally transmit (granted, in an emergency nobody cares, but I don't know many people who would be happy to spend money on a setup that they wouldn't even be legally allowed to use).

Sure, hand held radios start at $30 and at $75-$100 can be pretty nice. State wide repeater networks are pretty common, there's pretty nice ones in Colorado and California that I've used, I'm sure there's many others. Sure an external antenna $30-$200 can really help if you are in a car, house, or even an apartment if you have a patio.

So sure you can blow many $1000s on it, but depending on the hardware and demands you can talk to large repeater network for $60 ish on 2M, and with a bit more skill and testing/certification (A general license) talk to people world wide for a few $100.

Here's a quad band radio great for digital modes like js8call to allow keyboard to keyboard chat over long distances for $80: https://qrp-labs.com/qdx.html

Here's a nice programmable 2M radio for $80: https://www.radioddity.com/products/tyt-uv8000e-dual-band-tw...

The point of ham radio in disasters is not for everyone to have a ham radio (that sounds like a disaster itself), but to have hams coordinate and forward communications. So they could, for example, sit at a community shelter and forward welfare messages to someplace that does have a sat phone (or long distance HF link) to send messages out of the area.

Though ham radios are no longer bulky nor expensive - I can hit a repeater 10 miles away from a handheld about as big as half a deck of cards with a 12" antenna.

You can talk to your local repeater on a $30 radio that fits in a pocket (and the license is easy to get and super-cheap, like, $15 or so).