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Agree about the Baofeng. Works very well for the price. And if you drop it into the toilet you won't cry. Don't get sucked into the fancier models, get a UV5R. Also order a SMA to SO239 adapter for it at the same time so you can hook it up to an antenna, say a mag mount on your car or J-Pole at the QTH. Buy the programming cable too, it is indeed a PITA to program. If all you need is a few local repeaters it's OK but if you are one of those must have every repeater in the state guys you need it for sure.
And then you can start looking for a real radio. While the Baofeng is a good starter rig the front end is loose and in rf noisy environments you can have to crank the squelch. And the squelch is only accessible through the menu, which sucks. Any radio I was going to pay real money for needs to have a squelch knob.
Where do you live? Urban, suburban or rural? Do you have room for antennas?
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