A HAM license realistically is for two things:

1 the test teaches you major items you should know about how radio works
2 how to not fuck shit up for everyone else

For the bands allocated to HAM radio in the US, as long as you're not fucking shit up for everyone else the FCC doesn't really care. A good example of that and my personal favorite rule is the power transmission rule of "only enough power to complete the transmission". Functionally it's so vague that I doubt anyone would ever actually get their license suspended over it.

The group AFRL ARRL has a pretty restrictive "band plan" that I think is where the above comment's salt is coming from. A perception I have and have heard others talk about is the HAM community has a tendency to be borderline hostile to newcomers and are very gate-keepy, which ARRL in my experience embodies.

I have a license purely to play by the rules from a legal standpoint when I'm out in the rocky mountains hiking and camping with friends, makes communicating with different groups way easier

Edit: formatting, typoing ARRL

Get into ham radio if you like radios, that's pretty much the only topic you'll find on the air.

So am I able to goof around on the radio till I get my license or do I really need to have my license first?

It's illegal to transmit music

True, for obvious reasons

it's illegal to transmit anything encrypted unless you're controlling a satellite

True, it helps to ensure nothing illegal is going on and enforce keeping commercial interests out. It's a self regulating space, one of the only cases I know of that tends to work due to there being no monetary interests allowed. The point is to communicate information, not hide it.

it's illegal to transmit anything for commercial purposes.

True, the whole point is to keep commercial interests out. That's what "amateur" means.

illegal to transmit anything on a regular basis that could reasonably be communicated some other way.

False. This is for something like a non-profit wanting to use radios for their operations, they should be steered toward another service like gmrs, FRS, murs, etc. instead of amateur radio.

It's illegal to push that button until you're licensed.

(No one will search you out if you're not being annoying)

Do you mean ARRL?

I agree their bandplan is pretty restricty, but it's also not law. It's more for playing nice with each other. Keep high power up here so it doesn't wipe out the people playing with low power, digital here so they don't get overrun by voice, etc. You wouldn't have any idea you're stepping on someone sending Morse if you're on FM. So there's reason for it.

And yeah, with line of sight radios, nobody gives two shits 20 miles from civilization in the woods.

Nothing legally stops you from listening. To transmit, you are legally required to have a callsign (which you must broadcast during transmit) and your callsign must be licensed for that frequency.

If you break the law, it's highly unlikely that the FCC themselves will hunt you down and fine you. If you're using it to talk to others on the HAM bands, they'll likely get pissed at you for not being licensed but actually tracking you down is difficult. Using it for your own personal projects, friend groups, etc, it's unlikely anyone would notice you at all.

A license is like $15 for life (just need to occasionally tell the FCC you're still alive), the test will teach you some stuff, I don't see it as that onerous to play by the rules so I'd recommend following them.

I call bs on the encryption part too. You just need to publicly post the key for your encryption and say you're not trying to hide what you're saying.

I haven't seen any regulations saying where you need to publicly post the key.

I say license up now and learn it how the shit works. Never know when some "pirate" stations may be needed.

I live in Appalachia and people here regularly use ham for weather reports but that's about it. If there was an actual emergency I assume that would be sent out as well.

Lol whoops yeah, ARRL. I work in aerospace where we love our alphabet soup and I brainfarted AFRL.

I wasn't trying to say that the band plan doesn't exist for a reason, it absolutely does, some reasons which you pointed out exactly. I've definitely been around guys who treat the band plan like it is the law, and I imagine the original commenter had the misfortune of running into one of those guys and believed him at face value. Imho it's one of the reasons ham radio has been dying as a hobby.

What do you mean by same thing with Meshtastic, are they trying to sell spectrum around 900mHz too?

IDK I heard something about it. I think it may have been the 866 MHz one?

This would need like a Canadian or Mexican to help provide the internet from across the border, because if they pull the Iran style blackout there will be zero internet for the entire country.

You don't need one if there's an emergency, civil unrest would probably qualify as an emergency so non-licensed people can legally transmit.

The FCC hasn't really punished anyone for not having a license other than those that are really bothersome/disruptive or are doing jamming. But like, if there's civil unrest, the laws probably don't matter anymore so you can just ignore the law.

But if you don't have a license, you don't have a callsign, and thus others will refuse to talk to you during non-emergency peacetime.

Over here in Germany encryption is most definitely illegal. This includes encoded messages only the intended recipient could decode.

Meshenger app and mesh networks would still work, back to the BBS times we go

There's a difference between encryption and encoding, and that difference is intent.

Encoding is the process of imparting a digital message onto the radio carrier. A simple example is Morse code; transmitted by keying a continuous wave on and off in pre-determined patterns of long and short pulses with long and short gaps between. Frequency shift keying and bodot code are the encoding scheme behind RTTY, etc. Hams are permitted to experiment with novel encoding schemes, and have invented a few, PSK31 comes to mind, a phase shift keying standard designed to use commonly available PC sound cards as a modem.

Encryption is the process of obscuring the message for all but the intended recipient. There is one specific case the law calls out when this is permissible in Amateur radio service, and that's control signals of Amateur radio satellites. A novel encoding scheme, like making up your own alphabet instead of the standard Morse one, or ciphers of any kind that are intended to make the message secret, is illegal.

It's not uncommon to hear encrypted communiques on the ham bands; I've picked them up myself. You want a fun rabbit hole to fall down, look up numbers stations. Some serious cold war james bond bullshit.

I don't believe it is legal to send a PGP encrypted message over the air (on ham radio, go ahead and send it over Wi-Fi, you can encrypt the shit out of that) even if you've posted your private key on your website. What would even be the point of that? tilts head It might be legal to send a PGP signed message over ham radio; if I understand correctly that's basically a checksum that can guarantee the sender's possession of a private key.

and on top of that, 5G afaik is specifically made so that if you need more density, you can turn down the cell power and install more cell sites rather than take more spectrum

it was designed for venues like sports stadiums so you could keep installing more and more cell towers inside stadiums etc to accommodate huge crowds

For what it's worth, I think Cruz's proposal (all of it) was defeated 99-1.