so i just passed my technician exam last week (finally) and now im trying to figure out what handheld to get. everyone keeps saying baofeng and everyone else keeps saying dont get a baofeng and i honestly cant tell who to listen to anymore. ive been lurking on here for like two months trying to figure this out.

my main thing is i want to hit the local repeater, maybe do some simplex with a buddy who lives about 4 miles away, and eventually get into APRS if thats not too complicated for a starter. budget is somewhere around $50-150 but i could stretch it a bit if theres a real reason to.

i looked at the yaesu ft-65 and the wouxun kg-uv9d and honestly both seem fine but i dont really know what im comparing. does the extra money matter that much at this stage or should i just grab something cheap and see if this hobby even sticks for me

congrats on passing the tech, welcome to the mess haha. ok so here's my honest take — the baofeng hate is partly justified and partly just old-timers being snobby. the UV-5R works fine for hitting a repeater and doing local simplex, i used one for my first year and it did everything i needed. the receiver isnt great so you get a lot of interference in busy RF environments but if youre in a rural or suburban area you probably wont even notice.

that said if you can stretch to the yaesu ft-65 i do think its worth it. feels more solid, the receiver is noticeably cleaner, and yaesu has actual customer support which baofeng basically doesnt. for APRS youre probably gonna want to look at something like the ft-65r paired with an app like APRSdroid through bluetooth, or eventually step up to a dedicated APRS ht like the vx-8dr but thats a whole other price range. start simple, get on the repeater, make some contacts, then decide what features you actually care about.

im basically in the same boat as you, got my ticket in march and ended up going with the wouxun after reading a ton of reviews. its been pretty good so far, no complaints. the menu system is a little weird to learn but once you program it with chirp its fine. my only thing is i wish the battery life was a bit better but thats probably true of most HTs at this price point tbh.

one thing nobody told me — get a better antenna before you do anything else. the rubber duck that comes in the box is pretty mediocre and a nagoya 771 is like $12 and makes a noticeable difference. somebody on a different forum told me that and it was the best advice i got starting out