Do a search on HAM.
Read this article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio
Wikipedia
Big companies lease Private Channels,.. and don't need HAM. But numerous histories of HAM Radio specifically emphisize Amateur Radio's role in Emergency Services. Some even define Ham / Amateur Radio operators primary role as being a second line of defense, or communications in this case, for War, National Defense, and Natural Disasters. As far as 'ET' calling home because his flying saucer needs a spark plug..... this type of traffic is about all you hear on HAM.
some Pilots I knew, who were Ham operators, actually preffered it to the regularly assigned air traffic channels, 1) because it was clearer, and 2) because some repeaters have features that allow one to dial into the land line phone system.
In the late 60's the japanese came out with some amazing "hand-held" transceivers. they would transmit and reveive on quite a range of frequencies in AM or FM. They worked for the entire Ham bands, as well as military channels. The FCC and the Military didn't "LIKE" them, but there wasn't much they could do about it. As long as you used it on the assigned Aviation or Ham bands you were not breaking the law. Listening into Military communications,... not so much.
Buy a cheap hand held, take it with you to a bunch of remote spots and see if you can hear other operators. If that works Then think about getting a license and getting what Jim has, a built-in tranceiver. The additional Ground Plane created by big flat surfaces, like the hood and roof of a vehicle, along with a good antenna, and there won't be many places that you can't "Get-Out"(slang for sen/receive).
There is a subset club of the Ham operators called the 2 Meter club. These are guy's (and gals!), that use really low power, like 2 watts of RF Power, and massive antenna arrays, bounce their signals off the Ionosphere, and communicate long distances. A real "HAM" from the 40's, 50's,60's, and into the 70's, had a "Shack". That was his personal radio station, or "HAM Shack", it's where Radio Shack got it's name, for real. The walls would be covered in QSL Cards. When you managed to make contact with some operator in say Australia, or Hawaii, you exchanged QSL cards with the Date, Time, Name, Location, and of course your Call Sign. One Ham operator I met took a 50 foot piece of wire, tied one end on his hand held 2 watt tranceiver, the other on to a coral reef and was quite proud of connecting with some operator clear around on the other side of the world. As I recall his wife was a bit put-off by his taking his hobby with him on their sea side beach vacation in the bahamas.
'Five By Five' is what your Signal Strenth Meter read, means "Loud and Clear".
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