their not outlawed they are perfectly legal to own notice that the letters the guy produced said ne thing close to what he was saying about truck stops being fined without a hams license you are by fcc laws not to be keying or putting out more than 5 watts when using your radio that said most all drivers are braking that law and you can be fined if you are one of the one in a million that they get kind of Vegas odds in your favor that said you can go on line and with just a little reading take your hams lic test and then your not doing ne thing illegal but remember I just like Wikipedia is proven wrong and totally misinformed on lots of stuff everyday just cause someone seems like they know what their talking about normally like most they don't back check their a sourse if they even have one to begin with