Chaosmagnet,

I'll second Nomad's comments on the Yaesu FT-60R. It's a nice handheld radio. I've used two (mine and my wife's) for many events over the past several years. As I've watched the price come down recently I've been tempted to buy a "spare". That may be a sign it is about to be discontinued. If so it won't be because its a bad radio.

I do have one quibble with Nomad, I wouldn't call the FT-60 "cheap", it's inexpensive with good quality.

I read a lot of reviews before choosing the FT-60. One in particular pointed out that the radio could be operated without having to constantly refer to the owners manual. I've never regretted my purchase for that reason alone. Many times I've had to help other hams configure basic features on their radios that were not as simple to operate as the FT-60.

The flip side of that is that the FT-60 doesn't have many "bells & whistles". What it does have is reliable and easy to operate. I normally have one in my messenger bag... just in case.

As Nomad noted, the radio has a 5 watt transmitter, it also has medium (2w) and low (.5w) transmit levels. Some similar radios lack the 'medium' power option. Unlike some radios it can transmit at high power while running on alkaline batteries using an accessory battery pack. That said, I've never needed to use the accessory pack. I've never run the supplied battery down in a single day's operation. Perhaps that's just a sign I don't transmit much, but I suspect that's the norm.

It is dual band (VHF/UHF); it does not include the 220Mhz band.

There are a lot of handhelds out there. For the money you could do a lot worse than to buy an FT-60 (or two).

Dennis