HT Loudoun County

[Chwithad]

I got my Tech 3 weeks ago and I'm studying for my General now. The first HT I got was a Baofeng UV5RPRO (I realize why people say they're junk lol).
A coworker recently gave me his used Icom ICV8, which is nice, but it's only 2M and is just simply old (and probably lacks other newer tech).
I don't have funds for a base right now, but wanted to hear from those who live in Leesburg/Loudoun County, VA - what HT would you get for a max of $200 that would work best in this area? I really just prefer one that's dual band & easy to program. Maybe a digital would be best vs analog for this area? Thanks in advance!

 

[KB4SHP]

First of all Welcome to the Ham radio. I don’t live in the county you are asking for but I also started out with cheap ht an bought my first name brand ht few years ago it is the Yeasu ft70d and you can find them around 200 or less new great dual band and it will do fusion if you have any repeaters in your area

 

[freqhopping]

Who do you intend to talk/listen to?

A Baofeng is plenty sufficient to reach any local repeaters. There is minimal activity on DMR repeaters.

 

[Chwithad]

Who do you intend to talk/listen to?

A Baofeng is plenty sufficient to reach any local repeaters. There is minimal activity on DMR repeaters.

I'm just not impressed with the UV5RPRO. It's basically a "listen only" radio - transmitting doesn't work on it. The roughly 20 year old Icom transmits just fine. I guess the Baofeng could just be defective, but I believe there are a lot of digital setups in my area, that's why I was curious. I want to be able to listen/talk to whoever I want to with my privileges.

 

[freqhopping]

The only repeater with significant activity is WA4TSC 147.3. They have nightly traffic nets and then there are same few individuals that seem to be monitoring constantly. The rest of the repeaters are generally only active during weekly nets by the clubs that run the repeaters. If that's who you want to talk to, then any radio will work, though you might want to consider having an outdoor/elevated antenna at home that you can connect to in order to improve your range and readability.


What have you done to troubleshoot the Baofeng?


After you've done the VHF/UHF thing for a few months you may find it boring, especially once you've done HF if that's a goal when you upgrade. But if ragchewing is your thing, then a radio that can do DMR can get you into the TGIF and Brandmeister nets and there are all sort of people you can chat with. Though that would best be done via a Pi-Star. Public DMR repeaters usually have a limited set of talkgroups available.

I've got some TYT UV390s for DMR-capable HTs. One have been modified with OpenGD77 firmware to add some different capabilities. I believe there are some other cheaper radios that can also be modified for a significant improvement over the original firmware.

 

[Chwithad]

I haven't done any troubleshooting yet. Thanks for the info.