I'm very new to this kind of stuff but I am extremely interested in learning more. I am open to suggestions as to what transceiver/scanner i should start out with and what books i should read.
It's hard to know where exactly to direct you when you just say you're interested in radio. That's like saying you like to eat and expect me to know what restaurant to tell you to go to. With that in mind, I'll give you a basic overview. Radio, or electromagnetic radiation encompasses our everyday life. Whether via cables, the airwaves, satellites, terrestrial microwave links or by any other means, there's rarely a minute today that we aren't in some way affected by it. Long ago, federal and international agencies realized what potential this technology was bound to have and took ownership of frequencies requiring permission, whether directly obtained or implied, to use radio.
With computers, there are hackers, people who find and exploit loopholes for the sheer interest of the inner workings anything encompassing computers. With telephones, there are phreaks, finding loopholes in the telephone network to exploit. Why should radio be any different? Just sit for a minute and think about all those things I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Think about all of the things today that rely on electromagnetic radiation. Now think about what could be accomplished if you how it all really worked. The loopholes slowly make themselves evident. This isn't something you can take a university course on. If this is what interests you, a lot of it you'll have to have some sort of inner talent, open box thinking, a knack if you will. Others can help you; show you the way. Many have written how to's on certain topics, but just following line by line without any kind of comprehension of how it was devised doesn't make you any smarter than the "hacker" that knows how to use some DoS tool they downloaded.
First, do everything you can to learn about radio in general. Studying for an Amateur Extra radio licence in the US is a good way to get started. If you succeed, you'll have a better grasp of how radio works and why radio works. Heck, you might even end up liking ham radio; a lot do. After reading about radio and learning more about it, you'll know more of what you're looking for in a radio. It all depends on what you want to do. There isn't a magic box out there that does everything and is the best at everything. If there was, it'd surely be so expensive it'd be out of reach to all but the wealthiest of society. I find it funny that a lot of people are just interested in getting into drive through headsets and they go buy a quad band handheld radio when a used radio on eBay for a fifth of the price could have achieved them the same end result. They'll never use the full capabilities of that radio but they saw someone else use that radio so that's the one they have to use. No thought put into it whatsoever.
Go to your local library and check out a book called the ARRL Ham Radio License Manual. Get a radio license. Get the General class and Extra class study manuals. Get the ARRL Handbook. If you read and understand all of those, then you'll really have learned a lot about radio. If you're truely interested in learning a lot about radio, you'll do exactly that. If you want to be the radio version of a script kiddie, I'll look forward to reading posts about how you're having problems talking to the Home Depot walkie talkies with your FRS radio.
