Off-Road Ranger I
There is a big event/competition that happens every June called "Field Day" which might be the perfect experience to get you familiar with setting up and operating a radio. it's a 24 hour event (over a two day weekend) with the main purpose being getting people setting up radios out "in the field" as practice for emergency preparedness. For those of us who love the outdoors and exploring, it's a perfect excuse to hit the trails and find that perfect camp spot for the weekend and spend the time learning lots about radio. Ask around at the meetings you are attending to see if there are people participating who you can join up with. Most clubs that i'm aware of participate in some form or another. It's probably the single most active weekend of the year for amateur radio. ARRL also has a locator that might help you find a group to join up with (http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator) (or perhaps @Prerunner1982 has plans or can point to you a group in your area that participates)
I know how it is not having time for another hobby, and therefore not really having the interest in diving into it much deeper, but consider any further involvement just as more 'training'. having a license is the first step, but now you'll want to make sure that you actually have some real-world experience in making remote communications. Field Day might just be the perfect opportunity for that. Here in my town, one club also has a monthly event called "Days in the Park" where they set up radios in a different park every month to practice setting up and operating, in addition to teaching newcomers to the hobby. There might also be something like this in OKC. You may not have an HF radio yet, but having the knowledge of how to toss up an antenna and hook up a radio will be valuable, and then you'll have some familiarity that will help you if you decide to purchase an HF radio of your own
About #3, Prerunner already mentioned this, but most contacts made in HF (what your General license gives you access to) are pretty quick and scripted signal reports back and forth. Sometimes the whole interaction can be less than 15-20 seconds. You: "CQ CQ this is KG5TLZ calling CQ from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma" ... Me: "K7XPO" ... You: "K7XPO KG5TLZ, you're 5-9 in Oklahoma 5-9 Oklahoma, QSO?" .. Me: "KG5TLZ K7XPO you're 5-9 in Tucson, Arizona, 5-9 Arizona, thanks for the QSO 73"
I have some pretty severe social anxiety when talking on the phone/radio to strangers, but for some reason, when i'm working HF especially on Field Day, the adrenaline just takes over and all my anxiety goes away. At the beginning of any session my heard is beating like completely out of my chest though from the anxiety.
I guess my main point is this: If you want to be able to use radios to communicate in the event of an emergency when you are remote on an adventure, you gotta just get out there and operate. The tool is only useful if you are familiar with using it. The craziest part of the license exams is that they don't actually teach you anything about how to actually USE radios.
