What is the difference between a normal radio and amateur(ham)radio?

Question

What is the difference between a normal radio and amateur(ham)radio?

Answer 1

Regular Radio is for broadcasting news or entertainment.

Ham radio is a hobby/service and is about two or more people talking or otherwise communicating with each other.  Ham radio covers a lot of different things, from using shortwave to bounce signals off the ionosphere to communicate around the world to using walkie talkies to talk around town, to relaying voice or digital information through satellites such as the international space station, to bouncing signals off the moon.  As a service, it is about maintaining a pool of people who have and can use this kind of equipment to provide communication services in an emergency....like after a hurricain or earthquake etc....

Answer 2

Lets start with commerical broadcasting (normal radio) which has commericals and has to have continuous audio with no breaks in-between. Then we have amateur (ham) radio which is not allowed to have any form of commericals or music type of audio. Also are allowed to talk any distance to any other amateur in non restricted countries, using only assigned  frequencies by there associated country and the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) Agreements.

Answer 3

ham is more for people with cbs.