It's probably pretty easy for anyone here to get Technician, and probably General. I'd expect a large number could get Extra, and probably in one sitting.

So you're right, you could use ham radio, but it does require a license, but it's probably not hard to get.

Also, if you've an emergency, technically whatever you need to do to get help is fine. But it had better be a life and death emergency. Especially if you end up taking over the radio to a government agency, e.g. FAA or DoD.

> It's probably pretty easy for anyone here to get Technician, and probably General.

Yep. If you're reading this, you probably have the technical background to pass the Technician exam pretty easily.

A big chunk of the exam is stuff you learned in the physics class you probably had to take along the way. The rest is largely about specific regulations, like the power limit at this frequency is X, and don't build a tower more than Y tall within Z of airport.

If you can remember "frequency * wavelength = speed of light" and "watts = volts * amps", you could probably get a passing score on the technical part of it without studying in advance.

Most of the rest of the Technician exam is what is the absolute minimum you need to know about Part 97 to avoid disrupting your neighbors' radio reception and/or keep the FCC from knocking on your door.

Exactly. They're the training wheels: if you never do these things, you'll be fine. (And if you do the right things and your neighbor still gets annoyed, we won't get mad at you.)

General and Extra are more like "OK, here's how you can get as close as possible to those things we told you not do to without getting in trouble."