so i just passed my technician exam last week and im trying to figure out what handheld to get. ive been reading a bunch of stuff online but honestly it just makes me more confused because everyone has a different opinion and half the posts i find are like 10 years old so i dont know whats still relevant.

my main thing is i want to be able to hit the local repeaters and maybe do some simplex stuff at some point. i live in a pretty flat area so i dont know if that changes anything. someone at the club meeting mentioned i should just grab a baofeng to start with and not overthink it but then someone else said i should save up for a yaesu or kenwood. budget is probably around 50-100 bucks to start, maybe a little more if theres a really good reason.

also does the number of channels or memory slots matter much when youre just starting out? i have no idea how many repeaters are even in my area yet so i dont know if 128 channels is overkill or if ill fill it up eventually. any advice appreciated, trying not to make a dumb first purchase here

congrats on passing the tech exam, welcome to the hobby. honestly the baofeng uv-5r advice isnt wrong for a first radio if budget is the main concern. yeah the build quality isnt amazing and programming it can be a little frustrating at first but chirp software makes it pretty manageable and you cant really beat it for learning the basics without worrying about breaking an expensive radio. plenty of people use them every day on local repeaters without any issues.

that said if you can stretch to like 150-180 the yaesu ft-65 or the ft-4xr are really solid step ups. better receiver sensitivity, easier to program without a computer, and the build quality is noticeably better. i gave my old ft-65 to my nephew when he got licensed and hes been happy with it for two years now. for just hitting local repeaters and simplex you dont need a ton of features honestly, dual band vhf/uhf covers basically everything youll want to do as a tech. the channel count wont matter much until you start traveling or get really into it

i was in the exact same spot about 8 months ago and ended up going with the baofeng uv-k5 which is a slightly newer one and i think it was like 30 bucks. its been fine for hitting repeaters, i got chirp set up after watching a youtube video and had all my local ones programmed in an afternoon. no complaints really for what i paid. flat area should be fine, line of sight matters more than anything and most repeaters are up on towers or hills anyway so youll probably reach more than you think with even 4-5 watts