"All radio is line of sight though one does get a bit of curvature as waves pass over the horizon.
I run CB, and two ham radios. One ham is dedicated aprs. I tout ham because of all the repeater. I inow gmrs has repeaters as well. I don’t believe they are as abundant as ham repeaters. One example of why I liike ham repeaters. I was on a ridge SW of Poncho Springs. With a 5 watt baofeng I communicated via repeater to someone in Denver.
With aprs one can track realtime my location. As well I can send/receive via radiio email and sms messages with non radio users."
This is intriguing, i didnt know you could send text/email via radio. Im reading they make dual receive radios for what you have set up with the two i think? Just way more expensive. Im not sure my folks would do the test for ham, but if this would open up contact to me if they were in the noco mountains (boulder-red feather), this is a promising option. Heck I might do this just for that ability.
I found a video of a local guy (justinking) that reviews a kenwood ham radio that has this aprs ability, and GPS(? What haha!) It seems his go to for reaching out, but maybe he can use other frequencies for emergency services? I sure would like to try this aprs to sms, thats huge for communication if you can readily tell family where you are.
GMRS sounds worth while to, once the license price drops to 35$.
I wonder why you cant just have an all in one amateur radio license that allows all these platforms. It would seem to me that anyone going the length to be responsible and test for this, should be able to operate all platforms once learned? Ill have to read more on this.