Is anyone here into Amateur radio?

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Just curious. I've been into short wave radio since I was 14. For global news that never gets reported, nothing beats listening to Ham radio operators.
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I have a handheld 2 meter transceiver. I'm a pseudo-survivalist, and I bought it primarily for that, but find it fun to see how far of a contact I can get on it. 200 miles is my farthest so far.

 

Do you, or anyone, know of any net sites that monitor it? I've seen some but would like to know of others

 

I would do a search using
"Online ham receivers "

I'm sure there's quite a few sources

 

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To my knowledge, 2 meters is local talk unless you are part of a repeater network. For shortwave people like me, it's like a continuous 1.6 – 30 MHz least ways on a world class receiver (minus the US government frequencies they want blocked before you can sell a shortwave in the US).

 

2 meters is FM, so yeah it's pretty much local. In an emergency, a ham operator in Buenos Aires won't do me much good. I'm not into DXing so much. I suppose you could Moon bounce a signal, in theory, but my handheld is only 5 watts.

 

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I was asking this because I want to get a general class Amateur license.

 

I have a Technician class license to operate in the VHF/UHF amateur bands above 30 MHz.
The test was not that difficult and knowing morse code is no longer required. Can't help you with the General class license, as I've never taken the exam. I'm sure there are plenty of study guides online.

http://www.arrl.org/getting-your-technician-license

http://www.arrl.org/upgrading-to-a-general-license