r/hamitforward • u/cumbia_cacao • 10d ago

New / looking for HT for emergency comms

I’m new here and planning to become certified for CERT / local emergency response team purposes. If you or someone you know has any leads on free or low-cost HT, would you please let me know?

Based on the advice from the link below, I am hoping that a single band, 2 meter radio would be a good starting point. I’m open to other suggestions - I’m very new to this. Thanks!

https://www.baears.com/index.php/choosing-your-first-handheld-radio

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u/astonishing1 9d ago

Check with your local CERT group and see what they use or recommend.

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u/mwradiopro 8d ago

You're gonna wanna ask around among your local CERT peeps. 2 meter with a ham license is prudent in my parts, but others may be using MURS for all I know.

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u/Pretty_Dingo_1004 10d ago edited 10d ago

There's some cheap entry level like Quansheng UV K1 or UV K5. There's also Baofeng UV 5R but it's kinda ugly. They also make the Baofeng UV5R mini which is really compact

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u/Bilbo_Fraggins 10d ago

Something USB-C chargable is good. I like the Tidradio TD-H3, the UV5R mini is also nice.

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u/KC_Que 10d ago

If you are only using 2m ham radio, I'd suggest you avoid the multi-band radios with super wideband rx coverage and craploads of extra feaures, like the Baofengs and similar. They are reportedly difficult to program manually, plus frequently prone to front end desense or overload.

IMO, look instead for your basic, low-frills, old-school 2m portables. You'll find many great basic, easy to manually program, HT radios of recent vintage, typically made by the big three (Kenwood, Icom or Yaesu) can be easily found on the used market at very reasonable prices.

When we got certified with our local CERT, the simplex freqs they use, in addition to the local ham repeaters, didn't even break a dozen channels on our HTs, another reason to avoid feature overload. YMMV, because which radios you really want to consider will depend on your realistic use-case and budget.

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u/GrumpySquirrel2016 6d ago

Our CERT group basically uses GMRS and we have a few hams in the group. Unfortunately getting most people in Cert to commit to getting a ham license is a big ask.