YES - Start learning as much as you can Before You Spend ~ You Are Right On The Money About That .... Excellent Starting Point
Best advice I can offer is 100% recommend
A Ham Radio License Course designed for beginners. You can find lessons, instructional videos, and practice exams. Get started with our free lesson.
hamradioprep.com
First before you start spending your hard earned greenbacks is learn about what 2 way radio is "IF" you're wanting to communicate on the Bands you have mentioned...
If the General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) will work for you then Great !! Buy a couple of GMRS Radios and start learning about everything you need to know to operate Legally... ... You mentioned wanting to talk long distances so you'll need to learn how to program your radio to hit Repeaters with the Codes required and learn how that works to communicate farther than Simplex(radio to radio, line of sight, etc etc)... There is a inexpensive one time charge to buy a GMRS License (No Test Required) that will cover your whole immediate Family and you will be legal.....
Then there's the CB (11 meter band-NO LICENSE required) that can work great for local comms and depending on how you set it up with what kind of radio you have with certain accessory's you can Shoot Skip all across the country Under Certain Atmospheric Conditions...
Then there's a multitude of Amateur Radio Bands (Ham) that are complicated for the Novice (we All were a Novice) and depending on what radio you have with what accessory's added to it... Amateur Radio Requires A Certain License depending on what bands you would like to operate on ~ there are 3 License Levels of Amateur Radio...
All these types of 2 way radios require knowledge of many things... After you understand all of that then you'll know Which Radio to select out of thousands of radios ~ You'll know Which Accessory's you Must have Depending on Where Geographically you are located and What Exactly you Must Have to do what you want to do....
https://hamradioprep.com/
At Ham Radio Prep you study at your own pace as your time allows... It's still the easiest and quickest way to your "Ticket" (License)..... You go over the Lesson material and take a Practice Test- They'll show you your mistakes and how to correct them then you take another Practice Test..... You can do this over and over and over an unlimited amount of times until you have memorized all the questions and answers - The questions are formatted very close to the real questions you'll have to answer when you take your test... If you fail you can come back the next day and pay another small fee and take the test again... The Fee is very reasonable-few bucks..... You do this for each level or as far as you want to go... You'll find the Tech Level allows you a small amount of the available frequency's on Certain Bands - The General Level will give you most of the Amateur Bands~ The Extra Level you get everything Amateur Radio... With Ham Radio Prep you can retake Any Part Of The Lessons AND Practice Test as many times as it takes..... Once you Pay which ever Level you want that Lesson will be available for your Lifetime ~ No Expiration Date.... I bought all 3 last year ago and I'm starting back up for my General then who knows.... I'm old and I tell myself it's good for my brain ~ (LIAR !!) ~~ LOL !!
Good Luck & Keep Us Posted ~ You Got This ......
44Dan CB-AM
903 Central Arizona CB-SSB
2WWS9013-11 METER FREEBAND
KK7RBE-TECH
WSCW671-GMRS
KYQ9013-CB (1968)
