I did it in the UK mostly for the hardware / legal transmit permissions on some experimental bands for my SDR. There are repeaters most places, though chatting

I did it in the UK mostly for the hardware / legal transmit permissions on some experimental bands for my SDR. There are repeaters most places, though chatting on them didn't really interest me much. Check out echolink (available as a smartphone app) after getting your license if that does though - there is no special hardware needed and you can speak with people on repeaters all over the world if you want to.