Reddit reviews The ARRL Ham Radio License Manual

I reached out to a friend (who has the Amateur Extra license) for guidance and he recommended the canonical ARRL book (link). I've been reading that and it's been VERY helpful. It organizes all the questions by subject matter and teaches more holistically, while still letting you see the exact content in the exam.

Well first you’ll probably want to get a license to use it. Assuming you’re in the US, I recommend this book to help you get started. It’s not very difficult to get the entry level license (Technician), but if by “long range” you mean global, you’ll need to upgrade to a license that permits use of those frequencies, which would be the next step up (General).

There’s a lot of possibilities with this question and I think you’ll probably get more help at r/amateurradio as r/radio is more for broadcast radio rather than two way communication.

Yeah, the laws explicitly allow transmission outside of your licensed limits for the preservation of life and property. The test is super easy. You should read the book it's based on at least once to get a broad understanding, and then download a free app that gives you all the test questions. Just go through the questions until you've memorized enough to Ace the test.

Testing costs around $15. I'd strongly recommend taking all the tests through amateur extra to get access to all amateur bands. If it takes you an extra couple months to memorize all the questions, that's totally fine (unless you're in a hurry to transmit, then just study more!).

In short, you'll need $20 for a Kindle version of the arrl manual (you can skip it and read free or lower cost manuals if money is super tight, but this is the official guide that you can come back to).

https://www.amazon.com/ARRL-Ham-Radio-License-Manual-ebook/dp/B07DFSW94G

Then you'll study with a free app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iversoft.ham.test.prep

You can just Ace the tests from the app by memorizing all the questions, but there's HUGE value to actually understanding the content in the study guide that you won't get from memorizing a couple hundred question answers.

Then, take a test for a variable cost -- mine was $15 (and that covers all three tests if you take them all, it's just a fee to help pay for the site and materials).

Finally, or maybe first, get yourself a cheap ham radio like the baofang UV-5R. It's only about $20, so I'd just get it and start playing with the relatively complicated controls (plenty of guides on the internet) and worry about any upgrades long into the future when you have money and you're sure you're interested.