If you don't have a ham radio license, or if you want to upgrade the license you have, there are many tools and study helps avaialble.

I recently saw a new one called MyHamRadioStudy. It's free and helps you study the questions from the current FCC question pools for the Technician, General, and Extra exams. Here's some additional free alternatives:

• HamStudy and HamBook by SignalStuff
• Ham Radio Crash Course License Test Prep Playlist

And a couple of paid options:

• The ARRL Ham Radio License Manual
• Ham Radio License Exam

If you want to get your Technician license, a few hours of reading and studying using any of these tools can get you there.

Each spring, the Salty Lizard gravel bike race brings hundreds of bikers to Utah's west desert. Most of the course has no cell service, so amateur radio operators provide communication support for the 3 aid stations and drive the SAG vehicles which roam the course. I volunteered to help out at this years event. Here's how it went and what I learned.

Last year Cobra released the Trailblazer series of GMRS radios. Gratefully, they continued to use the same privacy codes as they have previously used. That means the mappings between brands of radios that I describe in my FRS/GMRS Privacy Codes Demystified deep dive work great with the Cobra Trailblazer 250, 450, and 500.