so i just passed my technician exam last week and im trying to figure out what handheld to get. ive been doing a ton of reading and now i think i know less than when i started lol. everyone seems to have a strong opinion and they all contradict each other.

like some people swear by the Baofeng UV-5R because its cheap and you can learn on it, other people act like youre practically a criminal for even considering it. then theres the Yaesu FT-60 which seems really popular with the older crowd, and the Kenwood TH-D74 which looks amazing but is like 500 bucks and i dont even know what APRS is yet.

i mostly want to use it for local repeaters and maybe some simplex when im hiking. i dont need anything fancy i think. budget is maybe 60-80 bucks to start but i could stretch if theres a really good reason to. anyone have thoughts? what did you start with?

Congrats on passing the exam. Okay so here's my honest take — the Baofeng hate is a little overblown but it's not totally without merit. The radios themselves work fine for what you're describing, the issue is more that the programming software is a bit of a mess and the menu system will make you want to throw it against a wall at first. That said I started on one and have zero regrets, I just eventually outgrew it.

For your budget the UV-5R or the slightly nicer UV-82 are perfectly fine. If you can stretch just a little bit, like to the $100-120 range, the Yaesu FT-65 is genuinely a step up in terms of build quality and receiver performance and it doesn't feel like a toy. The FT-60 is great too but they're getting harder to find new and used prices have gone up.

For hiking and local repeaters you really dont need APRS yet, dont let the feature list on the fancy radios distract you. Get something cheap enough that you wont be heartbroken if you drop it on a trail, learn how repeaters work, figure out what you actually want from the hobby, then upgrade later when you know more about what matters to you.

i was in almost the exact same spot about 8 months ago and ended up with the Baofeng UV-5R just because i wanted to get on the air without spending a ton. honestly it worked out fine, got me through my first few months. just download CHIRP to program it, the manual is useless.

one thing nobody told me — get a better antenna for it right away. the rubber duck that comes on those things is pretty bad and a decent nagoya antenna makes a noticeable difference on weak repeaters. like $10-15 on amazon.