Fear be gone! I took the plunge got the license started learning radio. turns out everything I have wanted to do so far which is listen and learn I never neede

Fear be gone! I took the plunge got the license started learning radio. turns out everything I have wanted to do so far which is listen and learn I never needed the license for in the first place. The amateur license is to transmit. You can receive anything anytime anywhere in fact you are anyway since we are continually bathed in an electromagnetic soup you may as well decode bits of it. Software Defined Radio (SDR) dramatically lowers the barrier to seeing chunky bits in this electromagnetic soup. I first got a rtl-sdr (usb dongle) for under $10. Now I am having a blast building Quadrifilar Helical Antennas from plumbing supplies to get the pictures NOAA satellites are sending when they are over head. (no license needed) I encourage anyone with even a passing interest to to consider starting with "read only" and not even worry about talking the transmitting tests till you figure out if that what you want.