Will I need a license to operate this? I know I don't if I am just going to listen, but if I plan on talking do I need to get a Ham radio license?
Technically YES you need a Amateur Radio licence which is easy peazy to do if you want to use the HAM frequencies, However if you only inted to use the 446.000 Frqs they are normally allocated to the PMR freqs and not licenced. That is the route I took. But personally in a major crisis or disaster I dont think anyone is going to be bothered who uses what in order to save lives. But it is good to get a licence and to learn correct radio procedure and protocol.
The short answer:
No, you do
not need an Amateur Radio license to operate a Baofeng. However, if you do use a Baofeng, it is possible (and easy) to break the law with it.
The long answer:
It's only illegal for an unlicensed person to transmit on a
ham radio band (the radio doesn't matter). That means as long as you are only using (or programming, rather) the public bands, such as FRS and such, then you're good to go.
However, (and this is strictly going by the law of the land) those public bands also have maximum power restrictions, which a typical Baofeng can easily exceed. For example, the FRS band is limited to 2 watts of power. You are perfectly able to put out 8 watts of power with a Baofeng BF-F9V2+. . .
In application, or real-life, that is to say. . . if you are putting out 8 watts on the FRS band, I doubt anyone is going to notice and/or care. As it stands, about 50% of the CB operators out there are flagrantly and proudly breaking the law. Whereas on that band, 4 watts is the maximum, you have some people putting out
kilowatts on that band, and the FCC is wholly uninterested in complaints. So yes, you should be able to do that with no problems. You may find that lots of people can hear you, but you can't hear them.
But - and take this to heart - if you use it to transmit on the ham radio bands and you are not licensed, you will be found and reported by the end of the week. And the FCC will absolutely take immediate and expensive action. So, you know. . . I wouldn't do that. Can you listen-in on the ham radio bands? Absolutely. Just don't transmit.
Like Silent Earth pointed out, you should just go ahead and get your license. It's not hard. It's not expensive. Over the years, they've made the tests way easier because of concerns that ham radio is becoming a dying hobby, thanks to the bureaucratic red tape.
