so ive been licensed for about 3 months now (tech class) and ive just been using the club's radios at meetings and the occasional net but i think its time to actually get my own handheld. problem is every time i start looking i end up with 47 browser tabs open and no clearer than when i started

mostly i want to hit the local repeaters, maybe eventually get into APRS if thats not too complicated, and i live in a decent sized city so theres actually a lot of activity around here. budget is probably around 100-150 bucks but i could stretch a bit if there was actually a good reason to

ive seen people mention the Baofeng UV-5R like a million times and also the Yaesu FT-65 and some people swear by the wouxun stuff. honestly i dont even know what features matter vs what's just marketing fluff. like does dual band actually matter day to day or is that just nice to have

any help appreciated, trying not to overthink this but clearly failing at that

oh man i remember this exact feeling when i was starting out, you're definitely not alone. ok so real talk — the Baofeng stuff works and there's nothing wrong with starting there, lots of people do, but the UI is genuinely kind of a pain and the manuals read like they were translated by a very tired robot. if you're ok with spending a little time on youtube figuring it out it's fine for getting on repeaters

that said if your budget can stretch even to like $120-130 the Yaesu FT-65 is just a nicer experience. the menus make more sense, audio is clearer, feels more solid in the hand. i gave one to my daughter when she got her ticket and she figured it out without much help which says something. dual band meaning 2m and 70cm does matter in practice because a lot of repeaters around here are 70cm, so yeah id say it's worth having

APRS is a bit of a separate thing — you'd need either an HT that has it built in like the Yaesu FT5DR or you'd connect a regular HT to something like a mobilinkd TNC and use your phone. don't worry about that part yet, get on the repeaters first and have fun with it

dual band is 100% worth it dont let anyone tell you otherwise, at least half the repeaters in my area are on 440 and if you only have a 2m radio you're just missing stuff for no reason

i started with a UV-5R and honestly it was fine but i did eventually replace it with a Kenwood TH-D74 which is way overkill and i dont recommend spending that much right away lol. somewhere in the middle is probably the sweet spot for you