so i just passed my technician exam last week and im trying to figure out what handheld to buy first. ive been looking around and there's just so much stuff out there it's kind of hard to know where to start. everyone in my local club seems to have different opinions and now im more confused than before lol

some people are saying just grab a baofeng uv-5r to learn on, others are saying thats a waste of time and i should save up for something like a yaesu ft-65 or maybe the vx-6r which looks really nice but also costs way more. i dont really know what features actually matter vs what's just nice to have. like do i actually need dual band right away? and what about the programming software, i heard some radios are way easier to program than others which seems important

mostly i'll be using it to check into the local repeater and maybe bring it hiking. any thoughts appreciated, i dont have a huge budget, probably around 50-75 bucks to start

honestly for that budget the uv-5r is hard to argue with as a starting point and i know some guys roll their eyes at it but look, it gets you on the air, it works, and if you drop it on a trail it's not a heartbreaker. just get chirp set up on your computer to program it because doing it by hand is genuinely painful. dual band is fine to have from day one, you'll want 70cm eventually even if most local repeaters are 2m.

that said if you can stretch to like 100-120 the yaesu ft-65r is a noticeable step up in build quality and audio and the menu system is way less cryptic. i gave mine to my nephew when i upgraded and he's still using it two years later with zero issues. the vx-6r is great but thats a different budget conversation entirely, submersible and all that, probably overkill for just getting started but not a bad radio at all if you find one used

im kinda in the same boat as you, got my ticket back in march and ended up going with the ft-65 after reading a bunch of stuff online. no regrets so far, it fits pretty comfortably in my hand and the audio on the speaker is decent enough that i can hear it clearly on the trail without cranking the volume all the way up. programming it with chirp took me maybe an hour to figure out the first time but once you get it it's easy

one thing nobody told me that i wish i'd known is to check what your local repeaters actually need before you buy anything, like some want CTCSS tones and you just want to make sure whatever radio you get supports that, they all do but still, just double check. good luck and congrats on passing