[brownbear]

You can buy a VHF radio with out a licence. BUT it will be programmed and locked.

You can get a permit to carry it in your trucks with logging roads etc on it. Having a ham licence is only needed for the frequencies they operate in. But for example you pluu up to a logging road and it is 159.xxx your ham licence and radio won't make you legal.

By the way there is no law about listening, you only need to licenced for transmitting on the ham frequencies.

I have a Vertex 600 channel radio, it covers 136-174 MHZ. If you buy one from a store you can request to have it loaded with all the logging roads etc. Once you have a ham you can load the ham channels in their spectrum.