so i just passed my technician exam last week and everyone keeps telling me to just grab a baofeng to start but then other people say dont bother and spend a little more on something decent. im kind of lost honestly. i mostly want to hit the local repeaters and maybe do some APRS stuff eventually, nothing crazy. budget is probably around 100-150 dollars but i could stretch a little if theres a really good reason to.

ive been looking at the yaesu ft-65 and also the wouxun kg-uv9d which apparently does like six bands or something? and obviously the uv-5r keeps coming up everywhere. just want something that wont frustrate me as a total beginner. any thoughts from people who have actually used these would be great

honestly the baofeng hate is a little overblown but the people saying spend a bit more arent wrong either. the uv-5r will absolutely work and you'll get on the air fine, but the menu system is kind of a nightmare when youre new and just trying to figure everything out. i started on one and spent more time fighting the radio than actually using it lol

the ft-65 is a solid step up, feels way more like a real radio, good audio, pretty intuitive. if your budget can handle it i'd honestly look at the yaesu ft-60 too even though its older, those things are tanks and the receiver is noticeably better in a busy rf environment. for just hitting repeaters and learning the ropes its hard to beat. save the APRS rabbit hole for later, thats a whole other thing you can worry about once you got the basics down

I went through the same thing a few months ago and ended up with the Wouxun after reading a bunch of reviews. Honestly it's been pretty good but the software to program it is a little clunky and I had to mess around with CHIRP for a while before I got all my local repeaters loaded properly. Not a dealbreaker but just something to be aware of.

One thing nobody told me when I was shopping - check if there's an active repeater scene near you first because I spent weeks agonizing over which radio to buy and then realized my closest repeater is barely used anyway. Kind of wish I had just grabbed whatever and spent that energy actually getting on the air.