so i just passed my technician exam last week and im trying to figure out what handheld to get. everyone keeps telling me different things and honestly its just making it more confusing. my buddy at work has a baofeng uv-5r and says its fine to start out, but then i joined a local club and some of the older guys there were kind of making faces when i mentioned it. not sure if theyre being snobby or if theres actually a real reason to spend more money right out of the gate.

i mostly want to hit the local repeaters, maybe eventually do some simplex stuff. i dont have a base station or anything yet, just trying to get started. budget is somewhere around 50-80 bucks but i could stretch to like 150 if theres a really good reason. anyone been through this same thing recently?

oh man i went through this exact thing about two years ago. honestly the baofeng works fine for getting started and hitting repeaters, the main complaints are about the transmit quality being a little rough and the programming software being kind of a pain, but for just listening and checking into nets its totally adequate. i started with one and used it for about six months before i upgraded.

that said if you can stretch to the 130-150 range, a yaesu ft-65 or one of the wouxun kg-uv9d models are noticeably better built and the audio on both tx and rx is cleaner. the receivers are more selective too which matters more than people realize when youre near a busy area with lots of signals floating around. the club guys probably arent being snobs exactly, they just remember when cheap chinese radios were really truly awful, and some of the older baofeng models kind of were. the newer ones are better than their reputation at this point.

i got a uv5r when i first started and its been fine tbh. programmed it with chirp which took maybe an hour to figure out but now its easy. only thing i'd say is the stock antenna that comes with it is pretty mediocre, a nagoya na-771 is like 12 bucks on amazon and makes a noticeable difference on weaker repeaters. so even if you go the cheap route just factor in a few bucks for a better antenna and youre good