Another hand held radio worthy of consideration is the Motorola JT-1000. It is FCC "type accepted" so it can be used outside of the normal ham bands with the proper licensing of course.

It does not have the frequency agility drawback that some other commercial radios have because it is Front Panel Programmable (FPP). As supplied form the factory, it requires a programming "dongle" (a diode in a rather large plug adapter). The so called "FCC" or "Government" radios do not require this dongle but still require a password to program. The conversion is very simple, takes all of ten minutes and you can choose the password (by default it is "JT1000").

This radio is no longer being made by Motorola so you would need to find a used one. I bought mine from a firefighter who's department was moving to a different radio system. It was a little banged up but a $13 investment in a new case and it looks and performs like new. As i recall, I paid around $225 for the VHF model.

Here's a link to some reviews:
http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/1610