I'm retired and fairly old. Back when I was in my teens and early 20's,
I belonged to an electronics club, (for kids) and out leader was a Ham
operator. I had interest in becoming one back then, but like all young
people, I got more interested in girls and partying. However, I did
learn a lot about electronics back then, and used to work on a lot of
projects, and repair old radios and tvs.

Most of the stuff I worked on back then, was using tubes or individual
transistors. When ICs came into use, I found the stuff was too difficult
to work on, hard to get parts, and so on, so I pretty much quit my
electronics hobby.

In the 70's, I got into CB radio and had fun with that until that "fad"
died, and no one was on the CBs anymore, other than a few truckers and
some illegal operators, running power, and annoying anyone else.

Since the mid 90's, I got into using the internet and did enjoy that for
quite awhile. However, the internet is not much fun or even useful
anymore. These days it's all commercialized, and/or full of idiots. I
used to enjoy chatting on the newsgroups, but they have become mostly
wastelands these days. Everyone has aparently gone to Facebook and
social media, and I want no part of that rubbish.

So, here I am in my senior years, wanting something new. Well, I know
Ham Radio is not *new*, but I still find it interesting, and want to
give it a try. For one thing, I'm a trained weather Spotter and many of
these spotters use their Ham radio to report storms. I know for fact
that my internet service often goes down during bad storms, and my
landline phone often quits working too. That only leaves my cell phone,
but about all I can do with that is report storms to the weather bureau,
and sometimes the reception on my cellphone gets very bad too.

The way I understand it, the Ham radio equipped Spotters get on a
channel and can exchange storm information for the region, or the state.
That would be real useful.

On top of that, I'd just like to be able to chat with intelligent people
when there are no storms, about things of interest to both myself and
them. That is definitely not going to happen on Social Media websites.
Not to mention I'm tired of punching keys and would like to just talk.

So, this brings me to Ham Radio, or at least giving it a good try.

But, I'm at a complete loss as to where to begin.....
I know I must take the licensing tests, and I tend to wonder if I'll be
able to do it at my age, since my mind is not as sharp as it once was.
Then there is the cost of the equipment, which could be tough since I'm
on a fixed income (retired and on S.S.).
I have no clue what brand or type of radio to even buy, but I'm sure I
could find something USED on Ebay that I could afford. But the radio is
just the beginning. I imagine I'll need a tower for the antenna, and I
will not climb anything higher than a ladder to clean my rain gutters on
my single story home. I'm just dont have the balance anymore. So, I'm
assuming I would need to spend a fortune to have some company erect a
tower for me, which that alone might be the top reason I will never be
able to become a Ham.

I should also mention that I live in the country, and am in a area where
I can not get a good cellphone signal, and cant even get high speed
internet and have to rely on a dialup modem. That alone tells me that I
might need a lot of antenna to do anything.

So, where do I begin?

Most will have to be done over the internet. The nearest big city is 55
miles from here, so there are no radio or electronics stores or any
local places to meet other Hams. As far as I know, the nearby small
town, has no Ham operators. So, I wont be able to learn from another
person directly.

Maybe I'm getting in over my head even considering this at my age, but
so far it's not cost me anything except some time looking reading
newsgroups, and webs, and looking at some radios on Ebay. Since this
seems to be one of the more active newsgroups on this topic, I chose to
post here.

BTW: I'm in the USA.

Thanks for all advice!