Cost for the Licensing exam is $12.00. The Technician exam consists of 35 multiple choice questions from a pool of 511 questions. To pass you must answer 26 correctly. The following website www.w8mhb.com has all the questions to study. If you purchase a study guide book make sure it contains the revised questions after 1 July 2003. No morse code is required for the Technician License.

The GMRS radios require a license ($75.00 for a 5 year license). You can apply at the FCC website. No exam is required, just the $75.00 fee.

As an aside there is somewhat of an unofficial effort to monitor Channel 1 on the GMRS and FRS bands as an emergency Channel like Channel 9 of the CB bands. Range on the GMRS is "advertised" "5 miles under ideal conditions". Ideal conditions as best as I can determine is in the middle of a large calm lake. Probably less on land and even less inside of a building. But you can get external antennas for the GMRS radios and that should boost their range even with their limited power output.