>I'm not a ham, because I don't want to hang out with self-appointed cops
Hams do have a "Whacker" problem. General Boomer mentality scares away a lot of new Hams as well.
I’m not sure I understand the bit about cops. I’m interested though, please do tell.
The tedious sort of people who like to make it their mission in life to quote the rulebook as often as possible, frequently incorrectly, in an effort to assert their authority and dominance. I want nothing to do with them.
I'm not a ham, because I don't want to hang out with self-appointed cops, so I got a new Chinese pager made up with a center frequency of 433.5MHz (ISM, unlicensed), then configured it to work with a Pi-Star rig radiating well under the EU/Irish legal power limit, and receive messages infrequently enough not to run afoul of duty cycle limits. Because I know there's some ham who's just salivating to track me down and quote the rule book to me, and I want to deny him (it's always a him) that pleasure. It reaches all the way to the far end of my farm!
You can get traditional alphanumeric belt loop pagers or snazzy modern wristwatch pages these days. Check AliExpress.
[1] https://hampager.de/#/