Whats the best ham radio for about a hundred dollar range. Used radios are fine too.?

Question

Would be delighted to learn more about how far they can reach and so on. Planning to get my license soon.

Answer 1

Likely you will be limited to VHF/UHF as the fm only rigs are the cheapest.

As to distance, it depends.  Many repeaters are now linked to the Internet so you can chat through another repeater on the other side of the world.  If you don't want the Internet link, you should be fine for 10 to 20 miles to a repeater and thence another 10 or 20 more to another handheld or 30 to 50 miles to a mobil.  Locally, we do have a megaplex repeater system with linked repeaters from 1.2 GHz down to 10 meters.  I linked in on a 440 MHz handheld and had chats with Australia and England (no Internet - all rf path handled by the 10 meter port LOL).

You might check out Echo Link.  With your license, you can use your computer to link into repeaters worldwide and it won't cost you a nickle :)

Check out Echo Link here:

http://www.echolink.org/

Best regards,

Jim

Answer 2

It really depends on what band you plan on operating when you get your license.  We have many bands in which to operate on, some with restrictions on what we can do with them, some are restricted by license class.  This is really a vague question so it is hard to advise you, especially any transceiver within a certain price range, like $100.

Most HT's (handy talkies) are your cheaper units, less features get you a cheaper radio.  Used radios are okay, but I have to tell you, if you want a radio in the $100 range, you will probably buy a used radio.  I have not found a decent radio that didn't cost something.  My first HT, an Icom IC-W2A was $500 new in 1989.  If technology had not progressed like it has, the same radio would cost nearly $1000 now.  Since then, that radio had some mods done to it.

I hope that other hams on the site will put in their 5 cents (2 cents adjusted for inflation) and give information that I have missed.

You will be lucky to find a base station for anything less than a couple thousand dollars.  Base stations are really nice pieces of equipment and they are really worth the money...unless they break.  Which is why you should ask around...talk to other hams and find out what they use.  It is the best way to gauge what you will need when you have the cash to buy a rig.

Regarding you remark on how far they go, really depends of many things...much more than is fitting for Yahoo! Answers.  Perhaps when you go talk to a fellow ham about what manufactuers you should look into buy from, you might also sit down for a long discussion with him/her about radio in general.

In regards to your remark left, I have to say it really depends on which will reach farther because of the many different conditions that effect propagation.  However in a perfect world using typical values and flat terrian, mobiles have the advantage simply because of the way they are built and the power source is much greater and more plentiful.  I can say this because I used to live in a area where radio signals couldn't get out very well.  I beat out a 50 watt mobile with a 1.5 watt portable simply because of where I was at.  I moved two inches and I couldn't hit the repeater anymore.  Neither of us could.