HAM Radio in the truck? Is it possible?

I was a general class HAM. Got license in one session. Cute story. That’s when they required Morse code. Anyways… I’ve let it lapse.
Now a days. Much more interested in the world going down the drain.

 

I knew a licensed ham driver about 40 years ago, he had a Tech license, as did his wife. He would try calling his wife at exactly 18:00 CST every night on one of about a half-dozen pre-agreed frequencies, and was successful on most nights, regardless of where in North America he was that night. Even back then, it was probably cheaper to just call using a long-distance calling card. Today, between cell phones and What's App, ham radio is left as an expensive hobby. It only works as a viable communication method when both you and your recipient are licensed.

 

If you run the same region most of the time a modern vhf radio provides plenty of memory channels. They also have multiple banks so you can organize the frequencies to the area you are running. A handy tool would be the repeater book app which would list repeaters and their input and output frequencies. As others have pointed out there won't be many truck drivers on the repeaters but you are more likely to find someone who wants to strike up a conversation to pass the time. Standard frequency pairs are limited so even if you travel outside your normal area you may find active frequencies, just have to find correct tone.
I thought the upswing in the sunspot cycle would encourage more drivers to pick up their microphones but it appears it has had the opposite effect with the nonstop broadcasting on 19.