Hey Lawrence, you can use echolink
http://www.echolink.org/
while your waiting to figure out what radio equipment to get. There is also IRLP
http://www.irlp.net/ to play with. I think Milt VE6MLD still has his repeater VE6MHU attached to it here locally , so you can bother people around here that you remember (Stu, Fred.. the Red Cross folks..)
Let me know how you make out, I'm still on sabbatical btw, so we could probably arrange a time to chat.
Walter aka *****The Doctor**** (wow haven't used that one in years... :-)
Now instead of subjecting some poor random forum to a long rambling thought, I will try to consolidate those things into this blog where they can be more easily ignored profess to be collected thoughts from my mind.