Helen Taylor

congrats on passing the exam. okay so here's the thing — at your budget and for getting started on a local repeater, a Baofeng UV-5R or one of the UV-82 variants will absolutely do the job and you'll have money left over for a decent antenna because the stock rubber duck that comes with those is pretty underwhelming. CHIRP is just free software you use to program channels into the radio from your computer instead of fighting with the keypad, it makes life way easier once you figure it out, definitely download it. that said if you can stretch to around 200 the Yaesu FT-65R is a noticeable step up in build quality and the receiver is better which matters more than people admit when youre trying to pull in a weak repeater. dual band meaning 2m and 70cm is worth having from the start because most repeaters run on one or both of those bands and youll want the flexibility. APRS you can get into later, some HTs have it built in like the FT3DR but thats way more expensive, most people just start with a simple HT and add a TNC or use a phone app later on.