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Choosing a Radio

Once you get licensed, choosing your first radio can be a daunting task. There are SO many to choose from. So where do you start?

Step One

decide what features are important to you, and what bands you'll likely want to talk on the most. If you just got your technician license, it's likely the 2m and 70cm bands will be the ones you're going to use the most.

Note for Sacramento, CA area residents: there are no active 70cm repeaters because of air force restrictions in the 150mi radius area surrounding Beale Air Force base. So 2m is much more important in our area

You may want to consider an HF radio so you can talk on 6m and 10m as well, but many wait until they become a General class before heading for HF, which is where the fun really kicks in.

Your other likely parameters include:

• Do you want a wide-receive radio so you can listen to AM most of the frequency spectrum (AM radio, weather stations, emergency response frequencies, PG&E, walk-talkies, CB, etc).
• Do you want to listen to two frequencies at once? (2 VFOs)
• Hand held or car-mounted or desktop?
• Waterproof? Are you a CERT member that may use it in heavy rain? Most cases are water-resistant, but some are Submersible under water for 30 minutes, even when on!. Below only the "submersible" rating is marked as a "Y".
• How many memory channels do you need?
• Does size and weight matter?
• What's your budget like? I'll be honest: radios aren't cheap? Don't forget to plan on accessories.
• Do you want to do digital work (APRS, Packet, etc)?
• Do you want to start small or go for the gusto?
• Does it need to have a numeric keypad? (required for IRLP and easy in-the-field programming)
• Do you want a radio made by one of the big 3 companies:Yaesu, (very popular in the Sacramento area), ICOM, or Kenwood, or do you want one of the cheaper ones made by Alinco or the newly popular (because they're super-cheap) Chinese BaoFeng radios?
• Do you want to do lots of research reading user reviews first?

Step Two

Search through the many choices for the radios that meet your criteria. And since this is hard, I've summarized a few popular options below. But there are so many more to choose from, you should certainly find one that is close to your needs below and then go see what similar radios there might be which might be an even better fit for you.

Note: There are almost always discounts on each of these, so this is likely the most you'll pay.

note: I need to list ICOM and Kenwood choices still ; they make great radios too

Step Three

Decide what accessories do you want? Most radios comes with the bare essentials, but make sure you consider the following (which may or may not be included with the radio

• A hand-held speaker-mic (great for clipping to your collar so it is next to your ear)
• A programming cable if you want to program it full of frequencies yourself. If you're near me, contact me as I may be able to do it for you quickly using the Yolo ARES list of popular frequencies in the area.
• A higher-gain antenna. More gain is always better, but it also means it'll be longer most of the time so there may be times you want to revert to the stock one just for compactness

Step Four

And finally, where should you buy it? There are a number of ham radio vendor choices, and no bad ones IMHO:

• GigaParts, which also runs a sweepstakes you can enter daily to win very nice radios. (I keep hoping I'm next, but I never am).
• Ham Radio Outlet (they have walk-in stores in various parts of the country. There is one in Oakland, e.g., that you can walk into to see what the radios look like and how they feel
• Universal Radio, are nice because they have pictures of cats, like every good internet site should.
• Even Amazon these days has started selling some radios. In particular, the baofengs might be easier to get here

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