i was told by various officers AND by the place that sold it to me it was a Felony... hmm...

It might POSSIBLY be a Class C felony (very minor.....kinda like a serious misdemeanor) but I'd be surprised. This would be the first I've heard of that.

As a former Ham radio operator (let my license expire) I can tell you that for Citizens Band (11 meters channels 1-40 in the 27mhz band) requires no license. Linears are illegal but I cant remember the last time a SWAT team raided a CBer'* house or car looking for one LOL.

Scanners vary from state to state and sometimes even at the local level.

If you bleed over into your neighbors TV, then thats unlawful also and tends to attract attention to your station.

I know a guy that had a tweaked a freq'd CB with a linear. The FCC was in town with 2 or 3 vans. They triangulated on him, confiscated his gear, and fined him $10k. I was at the time running a slightly tweaked CB (8w), and kept my radio off for a week or two until then went on to another town.

To rehash CB and handheld FRS are differnt freq and CB is AM and the FRS is FM.
CB DID req a lic but that stopped about '78. I hate to amit this but I have a old Midland that has the lic warning tag on the back. I've got one CB swinging 30w fed into a Wilson 5000 ant 7dbm gain so I get great signal. It has 10meter on it also but I don't use it.

You just want to get a handheld CB radio- Cobra, Uniden, RAdio Shack... they're all fine for what you're wanting. For random use, and maximum convenience, you can just plug it into the lighter and use the supplied antenna on the unit- its bigger than a the family two ways, but can still be stuffed under the seat. If you use it more and more and want farther reception, stick an antenna on the trunk and plug into that whenever you use it.

jeff

I still remember our CB license: KBMN 7806 (from the '70'*)

FCC enforcment is primarily complaint driven, so the odds are good that he hacked someone off pretty bad LOL.

When I was in high school, we all ran tweaked CB'* in our cars (till I went Ham Radio LOL) I had a Midland 23 channel with a Palomar 100 watt heater, buddy had a drifty Siltronix at his house with a PDL-2, itty bitty Cobra with a mag mount antenna.

Most outragous guy I hung with had 2 8 foot whips on his 1975 Chevelle, 200 watt linear with extra channels, Roger Beep, echoer, and SSB. He could probably have pulled in signals from Mars LOL. Those were the days