Reddit mentions of BTECH Mini UV-25X4 25 Watt Tri-Band Base, Mobile Radio: 136-174mhz (VHF), 220-230mhz (1.25M), 400-520mhz (UHF) Amateur (Ham)

What's your budget? :-)


For starters I'm a big fan of the btech units. I recommend a dual band or a tri band unit. I've been using this and it's quite good:


https://www.amazon.com/BTECH-UV-25X4-Tri-Band-Mobile-Radio/dp/B06XCDWT6V/

They're not bad for $130.


However, make sure you:

• get a triband or dualband antenna! I have a Comet dual-band vertical antenna on my roof for 2m/70cm FM operation.
  
• get a decent 13.8v power supply for home! I picked up the analog meter version of this a couple years ago and run almost everyone on my desk from it: https://www.amazon.com/TekPower-TP30SWV-Digital-Switching-Supply/dp/B00L2K263Q/ . It's $140 but it's well worth the money.
  
  • but obviously i only transmit from one at a time, purely to not burn out the power supply.
    
• get good coax! For VHF/UHF you wanna get LMR-400 to minimise loss over longer distance coax runs.
  
• get a SWR meter that'll do VHF/UHF as the output amplifier will overheat and burn out if you run it into a badly matched antenna. I er, burnt out the dual band version of the above when I got my technician ticket - I was used to more spendy radios that have mismatch protection (ie, reduce output power) but this radio doesn't.
  
• get the PC programming cable for it.
  
  Once you get more familiar with the radio-y bits you can look at the kenwood, yaesu, icom, alinco, etc VHF/UHF units. There are some very nice ones but you want to know what you're doing so you don't make them unhappy. It's better to learn that on a $130 radio.

I've been looking at the BTECH's. Have these two saved to my Amazon list:

https://www.amazon.com/BTECH-UV-25X4-Tri-band-Mobile-Radio/dp/B06XCDWT6V/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525470026&sr=8-1&keywords=btech+mobile+transceiver

https://www.amazon.com/BTECH-MOBILE-UV-50X2-Mobile-Radio/dp/B06XK83VRV/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1525470026&sr=8-2-fkmr1&keywords=btech+mobile+transceiver

How far away is your closest repeater according to RepeaterBook etc?

To use a 4W HT (doesn't actually emit a full 4W BTW) in your situation you may need to resort to making a Yagi beam antenna. Something like this https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/9ggxhr/2m_yagi_v2_with_improved_feed_point_and/ though I'm not sure I'd recommend my exact plan for making one. (It works but it's a bit shoddy and doesn't fold up.)

A J antenna is also good and is omnidirectional but also involves getting at least 2m of coax (it's not a handheld antenna design, though it's easy to make with twin lead "tv antenna" cable and some cutting/soldering), some twin lead cable, and some SMA connectors.

Getting a 25W or better "mobile" (car type) UHF/VHF radio like https://www.amazon.com/BTECH-UV-25X4-Tri-Band-Mobile-Radio/dp/B06XCDWT6V/ with a reasonably well elevated J antenna is also an option that isn't too horribly expensive if you don't want to "QRP" around with 4W.

You might also want to use this http://www.hillmap.com/ as an easy way to figure out if you have any hills between you and repeaters around you. (This will show you a profile in a line between point A and B, but doesn't do radio propagation modeling. For that there's some other software called Radio Mobile.)

But basically even the best whip antenna isn't going to make it that far with a 4W HT unless you're on top of a mountain or something.

TYT TH-9000 is an "OK" monoband rig, but the PA gets damaged when it overheats. OTOH, it can run 60W and it has a nifty D-sub connector that can interface with controllers and such.

I'm currently using the BTECH UV-25X4, and I've been pretty happy with it for 1.25M use.

Either of these are about half of what the Alinco rig costs, but the Alinco is a higher-quality radio than either.

Add a 3-element Yagi to an HT, and that can work pretty well on the 1.25M band, too.

https://www.amazon.com/BTECH-UV-25X4-Tri-band-Mobile-Radio/dp/B06XCDWT6V