gmclam has some good ideas for you. Programming just the control freq.s is called cco, (control channel only) and has been around for some time now. Your most immediate learning experience after that will be deciding on how to arrange the talk groups. Obviously local conversations will be your priority. After that, you may want to experiment with high-priority assignments arranged in additional talk group banks like swat, narco's, tac channels, etc... I highly recommend getting the programming cable (should you more than likely have a pc) to make the task easier, and there's some good (free) software out there. Also having the additional benefit of saving your config('s) for experimentation. Just realize that your (radio) model doesn't support pc-control. Then there's the joy of discovering antennas', their design, manufactured vs: homemade, and so on. `Yup, you picked an expensive hobby. : ) Cheers, good-luck, and mostly, good-fun!