okay so i just passed my technician exam last week (finally) and im trying to figure out what handheld to buy. everyone keeps saying just get a baofeng and everyone else says dont get a baofeng and i honestly have no idea who to listen to. my budget is probably around 100-150 bucks but i could stretch a little if something is really worth it.

i mostly want to hit the local repeaters, maybe do some simplex with a buddy who also just got his ticket. i dont have any other radio gear yet so this would literally be my first everything. ive been looking at the yaesu FT-65 and also the wouxun KG-UV9D but i really dont know enough to compare them properly. is dual band something i actually need or can i get away with just 2m for now? any thoughts appreciated, sorry if this is a dumb question

not a dumb question at all, everyone starts somewhere. honestly for your use case — hitting repeaters and doing some local simplex — you really cant go wrong with the FT-65. yaesu build quality is noticeably better than the baofengs in my experience, the receiver is cleaner, and the menu system is actually somewhat logical once you spend an hour with it. i gave one to my nephew when he got his ticket and he was up and running on our local 2m repeater same day.

dual band is nice to have just so you have access to 70cm repeaters too since a lot of areas have more activity there than you'd expect. the FT-65 does both so that boxes that in. if you can stretch to maybe 110-120 shipped you should be able to find one, sometimes even new. chirp software makes programming it way less painful too, definitely download that before you start manually entering frequencies.

yeah i went through this exact same thing like 8 months ago lol. ended up getting a cheap baofeng UV-5R just to have something while i figured things out and honestly it worked fine for basic stuff but the reciver is pretty noisy and i kept getting weird intermod hits near the city. eventually picked up a wouxun and its noticeably better. that said if money is tight the baofeng will still let you get on the air and thats what matters when youre starting out