"Bruce in alaska" wrote

the Ham Radio, MAY, be able to do the job, depending on the location
and elevation of the local Repeaters in the area of you transit. You
can expect 20 miles from a VHF 5 Watt Radio, which gets you to a bit
farther than the horizon, and if there is a HighSite Local Repeater,
then 75 miles would be about the limit.

From a mile-high site near Mt. Rainier, WA, I got into a Vancouver, BC
repeater with my 2-watt HT -- a distance of 150 miles. The VE7 I talked with
was on a bicycle in Vancouver.... We talked for at least several minutes.

As for being able to use a [modified] 2-way amateur radio to access law
enforcement repeaters... absolutely not. There was a big flap about that
several years ago where someone did just that -- life-threatening and all. I
don't know what the eventual outcome was, but the reported intermediary
events were not pretty.

Howard N7SO