ok so i just passed my technician exam last week (still waiting on the callsign to show up in the database lol) and everyone keeps telling me to just get a baofeng to start. but then i see people on here and on reddit basically saying thats a mistake and i should save up for something better. i dont really know what i'd be using it mostly for, probably just local repeaters and maybe some simplex with a couple friends who are also getting into this. budget is probably under $100 but i could stretch to like $150 if it actually makes sense to.

is there something specific i should be looking for feature wise? i have no idea what half the specs even mean. someone mentioned a dual band radio but i dont know if that matters for a beginner. any advice appreciated, kinda overwhelmed by all the options honestly

congrats on passing the exam, the callsign usually shows up within a few days so keep checking the FCC ULS lookup. anyway on the HT question — i get why people say baofeng is fine to start and honestly for pure budget they're not wrong, the UV-5R works and lots of people learn the basics on them. but the programming software is kind of a pain and the menus are not exactly intuitive.

if you can stretch to that $150 range i'd really look at the Yaesu FT-65 or even the FT-4XR, both are dual band 2m/70cm which does matter because a lot of repeaters are on 70cm (440 MHz) not just 2 meters. the build quality difference between those and a baofeng is noticable the first time you hold one. the Yaesu chirp support is also pretty good so programming a bunch of repeaters in isn't terrible once you get the hang of it.

for just hitting local repeaters and talking simplex with friends any of these will honestly do the job fine. dual band is worth having just so you're not locked out of anything in your area.

I started with a baofeng a few years back and yeah it worked but I was always kind of fighting it. Eventually got a Kenwood TH-D74 which is way overkill for what you're describing but the point is once you use something with a decent UI you kind of wonder why you messed around with the other stuff. That said the TH-D74 is like $500 so obviously not what you're asking about haha.

For your budget the FT-65 recommendation above is solid, I've seen them go on sale for around $70-80 sometimes. One thing nobody told me when I started was to check what bands your local repeaters actually use before buying anything — most areas are heavy on 2m but some spots have tons of 70cm activity and almost nothing on 2m. Your local club probably has a repeater list or just look up your area on repeaterbook.com